


All Will Be In Order

by shimotsuki



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-13 18:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20586806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shimotsuki/pseuds/shimotsuki
Summary: Summer 1995: The Order of the Phoenix has been recalled.   And Remus Lupin has been shaken right out of his quiet, solitary,safeexistence.Now he has to come to terms with Sirius Black and a friendship disrupted by mistrust and Azkaban. He has to find a way to work with Molly Weasley, who is terrified of werewolves.It's going to be rather a long summer.





	1. The Perfect Flat

~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~

"Sirius, I need you to set off at once. You are to alert  
Remus Lupin, Arabella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher—the old crowd.  
Lie low at Lupin's for a while; I will contact you there."  
—_Goblet of Fire,_ chapter 36

~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~

Morning light crept apologetically into the basement flat, through two small windows set high in one of the thick stone walls. Remus blinked as a sunbeam spilled across the Help Wanted pages of the _Daily Prophet._ He ate the last bite of his toast, sipped some tea, and sat for a moment, looking over the job notices he'd circled. Only two today. He wondered, not for the first time, whether such meagre prospects were worth the five Knuts the _Prophet_ cost him. But then he smiled a little and shrugged, pushing his plate aside to make room for a clean piece of parchment. Since it was _his_ newspaper, and not the library's, at least he'd have the crossword to look forward to that evening.

Still, as he reached for his quill to begin yet another letter of application—this one for a part-time bookkeeping and filing job at a shop in Diagon Alley—it was hard to silence the voice in the back of his mind that mocked, _Why bother?_ One way or another, lycanthropy had cost him every job he'd ever managed to scrape up. When he was lucky, his employers merely became annoyed by his frequent absences and sacked him. When he was unlucky, they worked out why his illnesses were so very regular; some of them had even looked him up on the Registry before confronting him and sending him packing.

Remus picked up the teabag that balanced damply on the edge of his plate and dropped it back into his teacup. As he poured more hot water from the kettle, he watched it swirl around the teabag and turn an anaemic brown. The second cup was never quite as good.

And if finding steady work had been difficult before his year as a teacher, it had got much worse since last spring's media frenzy. _(Hogwarts Teacher Exposed as Werewolf! Dark Creature Teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts! Are Our Children Safe at School?)_ Now his name was known to most of the magical world. He rarely even got a chance at an interview, let alone a job. If not for the occasional research assignments commissioned by the Wizengamot—presumably sent his way by Dumbledore—he'd have had no income at all for a whole year.

He folded the letter, sealed it, and began on the other one. He _would_ bother. He had to. Because the alternative was to give up.

Remus hadn't given up fourteen years ago, when the world as he knew it ended. So he certainly wouldn't give up now.

In one way, things were better this year than they had been for a long time. He kept in touch with people now—people from what he thought of as _before._ He tried not to count on that, not to assume that the owls would always come, but for now he could enjoy the letters when they arrived. There was a kind and newsy message every few weeks from Dumbledore or McGonagall. And Sirius wrote to him, too. Remus chuckled, thinking of some of the silly, rather ribald comments sprinkled throughout his old friend's missives.

Sirius wrote to him.

Thank Merlin.

~o~o~o~

Remus had been the first to write. He spent the night after his departure from Hogwarts in a shabby little inn somewhere in northern England. As exhausted as he was from the transformation, grief and shame kept him awake most of the night. Finally, an hour before dawn, he dragged himself out of bed and found a quill and a piece of parchment in his battered briefcase.

_Dear Sirius,_

_Dumbledore told me what Harry and Hermione did last night, and that there is a chance you may have made it away safely._

_I don't know if an owl will be able to find you. Even if it does, I am probably the last person on earth you'd want to hear from, as it's all my fault you're on the run again. If I hadn't been distracted by the Map and run down to the Shack before taking my last dose of Wolfsbane, you would have got Peter all the way up to the castle, and you would now be a free man getting to know your godson. I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am, and I know there's no way I can make things up to you._

_But please, if you get this letter—just write back and let me know if you're all right._

_—R.J.L._

No answer came for days, even though Remus didn't think Sirius had been caught, since there was nothing in the news. He fought down worry and swallowed his disappointment, telling himself it was no more than he deserved if Sirius wasn't willing to reply.

But then a letter arrived after all, delivered by a tiny Scops owl that could barely keep from dropping it. And the letter was nothing like what Remus had expected.

_Dear Remus,_

_I would have written sooner, but it took some doing to get my hands on a quill and a bottle of ink. I'll reuse your piece of parchment, though. Hope you don't mind._

_Buckbeak and I are fine. We're on our way someplace warm and comfortable—I won't say where, just in case. Being on the run isn't easy, but it's a damn sight better than being in Azkaban. Or being a soulless wretch that a dementor has Kissed. And that would be me, right now, if you hadn't seen us on the Map and come down to the Shack. I don't think Harry would have killed me in the end, but he and his friends certainly could have Stunned me and turned me over to Fudge. They never would have listened to my story if you hadn't been there, but they trusted you enough to let you explain. So you can stop beating yourself up about the Wolfsbane and be glad that you did exactly what you did. I owe you one._

_Write to me often, Moony, won't you? I'll want to know how Harry's doing, and what's going on back home. And I'm bored. Buckbeak and I are good friends by now, but he's not much for conversation._

_—Sirius_

And so Remus found himself trading letters with his old mate. It was almost as though the long years after Voldemort's fall had never happened.

Especially since neither of them ever wrote a word about the past again.

Sirius wrote frequently at first, his cheerful scribbles delivered by great gaudy tropical birds. Lately, though, the notes had become cryptic and much more sporadic, and they were carried by owls that seemed to have been...diverted...from the post office at Hogsmeade. Remus suspected that Sirius was back up north watching out for Harry, who had been caught up unexpectedly in the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts. He could only hope that Sirius was watching out for himself as well.

~o~o~o~

After finishing the second job application, Remus eyed the soggy teabag, considering his chances of coaxing yet another cup of tea out of it. But pale brown water was not really what he wanted, so he settled for doing the washing up instead. Then he sent a broom skimming over the already spotless floor and set things to rights, looking around with some pride. He was managing _perfectly_ well. He had this flat. He had his Wizengamot research, his eternal job hunt, and towering piles of library books to keep him busy. He even had letters from friends to look forward to. Things could have been so very much worse.

He fished a few Sickles out of a leather pouch he kept deep inside a cupboard and picked up his letters. It was time for the daily trek to the Owl Office.

Remus locked his flat, climbed a narrow dark staircase, and opened the building's front door to a sunny June morning. His eyes were dazzled by the sudden brightness, so he heard the gruff bark before he saw the huge, shaggy black dog bounding toward him from behind a row of dustbins.

He froze—but only for an instant. Then he pulled the heavy door wide open. "Inside!" he hissed. The dog obliged, thumping eagerly down the stairs, sniffing as it went. Remus followed more slowly. Without a word, he let the dog into his flat and paused to lock the door behind them. When he turned around, the scruffy stray had transformed into a gaunt but roguishly grinning Sirius Black.

~o~o~o~

Sirius stretched, savouring the feeling of standing on two legs instead of four. He glanced around the minuscule flat—dark stone walls, cold stone floor, tiny windows that barely let in any light at all. A battered metal table that someone else must have cast off, because surely, no one would _choose_ such a thing. It was awfully depressing.

But he grinned at the look of shock on old Moony's face when he turned away from the door.

"What on earth are you doing here?" Remus's voice was sharp. "It's not safe! Someone could have recognized you!"

"Is that any way to greet an old friend?" Sirius shook his head in mock disappointment. "Aren't you glad to see me?"

Remus sighed, and some of the anger and worry faded from his eyes. "Of course I am." He even managed half a grin, for a moment. "But you know it isn't worth the risk!"

Sirius shook his head slowly, hit with a sudden rush of guilt for letting his delight at this reunion push aside the weight of the sombre news he bore. "Actually, I'm afraid it is." He spun one of the rickety chairs around and straddled it backward, leaning his elbows on the backrest. "Dumbledore sent me to find you."

Remus went rigid. "What happened?"

"Voldemort's back."

Staring in disbelief, Remus pulled another chair out and slowly sank into it. "Back?"

"He's got himself some kind of human-like body again, and he managed to summon about a dozen old Death Eaters to join him."

"Harry—is he—?" Remus's face was white.

Sirius rested a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Harry's all right. It was a close call, though. There was a Portkey—long story—anyway, it sent Harry to a graveyard where Voldemort was waiting for him." Rage boiled up, as it did whenever he thought about what happened that night. "Peter was there."

Remus's face darkened, and he muttered something under his breath.

"Peter's been looking after Voldemort all year, it seems. He was the one who brewed the potion that made the new body." Sirius grimaced. "They needed a bit of Harry's blood for it. Then the little rat cut off his own hand into the potion—that's how devoted he is to his _master._" He spat into the fireplace. "Peter even killed the other boy."

"What?" Remus looked horrified.

Sirius blinked, dismayed. "I forgot; you must have taught him last year! It was the other Hogwarts champion. I can't remember his name..."

"Cedric Diggory," said Remus distantly. "A fine young man."

They sat without speaking for a moment. Sirius watched as Remus clenched his jaw and closed his eyes, fighting back what was obviously a wave of cold fury. He couldn't help wondering if Remus used to feel that way about _him,_ before last year. Damn that rat. For everything.

Remus rubbed at his temples and looked up again, his eyes clear and calm now. "How on earth did Harry escape? Why didn't Voldemort kill him right there?"

Sirius thought of Harry, pale and exhausted in Dumbledore's office, and of the look on his too-young, too-old face when he told them about _Priori Incantatem._ Sirius knew that he would give just about anything to talk to James and Lily again, even if they were only a shadow or an echo of what they'd once been. He swallowed. "That's another long story." He forced himself to meet Remus's gaze. "I'll tell you some other time, I promise. But there are things we need to do now."

Remus watched him for a moment, looking curious but concerned. He nodded.

Sirius took a deep breath and plunged on. "Dumbledore wants us to recall the Order of the Phoenix right away. Discreetly. Fudge is being difficult...it looks like official Ministry policy is to deny that anything is happening at all. So Dumbledore told me to come stay with you, and get in touch with Dung, and old Mrs. Figg, and the rest of the crowd. You and I will need to contact everyone in person. No owls, no Floo."

But now Remus was appraising him through narrowed eyes. "So an escaped convict with a ten-thousand Galleon price on his head is going to wander around the country making contact with a dozen experts in Defensive magic?"

"They're fellow Order members, aren't they? I'll just tell them Dumbledore sent me..."

Remus was clearly unimpressed. "_I_ believed you were guilty until I saw Peter on the Map that night, and I was one of your _best mates._ Even Sturgis, or Emmeline, or Dung might Stun you and have the Aurors on their way to pick you up before you had a chance to open your mouth." A faint grin stole across his face again. "Well, maybe not Dung." The grin faded. "Anyway, _you_ need to stay _here._ I'll contact the others—and convince them you're innocent _before_ they meet up with you."

Sirius glowered. Inaction didn't suit him.

Remus rolled his eyes and poked Sirius in the shoulder. "Besides, when was the last time you had any sleep?"

Sirius shrugged. "Couple of nights ago, I guess. I came straight down here from Hogwarts."

"I thought as much. Look, let me make you some breakfast. Then I'll go talk to everyone, while you get some rest." He poured Sirius a cup of tea and busied himself at the hot plate that was balanced on a corner of the small kitchen worktop.

Sirius shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He would bet that old Moony was barely scraping by, and he didn't want to eat up all his food. But he was too hungry and tired to protest, especially once the lovely smell of frying eggs began to fill the flat.

He tipped his chair back and looked around the dim room. "Who does your decorating? Only I'd fire them, if I were you." Everything was spotlessly clean, and not an item was out of place—this was Remus, after all. But the only furniture to be seen, aside from the battered table and chairs, was a bed, neatly made up, with pillows all along one side as though to encourage it to pretend to be a sofa. A tatty blue rug alongside the bed was the sole attempt at decoration. It was truly dreadful.

Remus laughed. "Don't malign my flat," he said affably. "It's perfect, you know."

"Perfect." Sirius's eyebrows were lost in his tangled hair.

"Perfect." Remus turned the eggs with a deft flick of his wand. "For starters, the landlady doesn't mind renting to a werewolf. That's a definite advantage, right there." He set some bread to toast. "Second, look around. That's a Murphy bed—it folds right up into that cabinet on the wall. So every month I just close up the bed, lock my things in the cupboards, and voila—nothing for the wolf to damage. That's the beauty of stone walls." He passed Sirius a second teabag and filled his cup with hot water again. "Third, the rent isn't bad at all."

"I should think not," Sirius snorted, stirring sugar liberally into his tea. "Your neighbours all seem to be Muggle drug dealers. Between that, and the decor, I think your landlady ought to _pay_ you to live here."

Remus laughed again, his eyes dancing. "It may not be up to the standards of your old bachelor flat," he conceded. "But it's my own place, and no one's going to throw me out. It's perfect."

He pulled a slightly chipped plate out of a cupboard and filled it. "I'm all out of jam and butter, I'm afraid. You'll have to eat the toast with the egg." He set the plate in front of Sirius and sat down at the table again, pouring himself a fresh cup of tea.

"Egg and toast is marvellous. Ta." Sirius fell to, making short work of the hot meal. But his thoughts were racing, even while he ate, and eventually he set down his fork and gave voice to the question that had been troubling him for months—ever since he'd started reading between the lines of Remus's letters and guessing how few people his old friend had to depend on.

"If your life is so perfect nowadays, who looks after you?"

Remus looked up from his tea, surprised. "I look after myself, of course." His mouth quirked into a grin. "I'm perfectly capable of cooking. I can even tidy up, all on my own."

Sirius scowled at him. "That's not what I meant." No one who'd seen Remus at Hogwarts would ever question his ability to keep his flat neat as a pin. "Who comes and checks on you after full moons, the way we used to do after we all left school?"

Remus shrugged, scrutinizing his teacup. "I meant what I said—I can look after myself. There's nothing in this flat I can damage, and I know a lot of first-aid spells by now." He abruptly stood and crossed to one of the cupboards, pulling out a faded towel, a pair of shabby but clean pyjamas, and a new toothbrush. "Here, you go have a shower while I put things away, and then I'll get started rounding up people in the Order."

Sirius was far from satisfied with that answer, but it was clearly all he was going to get out of Moony for now.

~o~o~o~

Remus had just started making up the bed with fresh sheets when he heard the water stop running. Sirius emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, still looking shaggy and gaunt, but clean now.

"Oh, much better." Remus lobbed a pillow at him, Gryffindor style. "Now maybe the Order will believe me when I tell them you're innocent. Especially if you've had a bit of a sleep by the time they lay eyes on you."

"Git." Sirius sent the pillow back—his aim was as good as ever. "Are you really planning to bring everybody back here tonight for a meeting?"

"Hardly." Remus couldn't help chuckling at the thought. "This flat is too small to hold the old crowd, let alone any new recruits we might come up with." He frowned. "The Order really does need a safe place to meet, though. I wonder if Dumbledore has something planned."

"I've been thinking about that," Sirius said. His voice sounded tight, and Remus glanced up in concern, but Sirius was staring intently at a point just past his left ear. "You know, my dear departed parents put all kinds of secrecy spells on the family house. And it's mine now that they're all dead, whether they've blasted me off that horrible tapestry or not." He forced a laugh. "I'm planning to tell Dumbledore he can have the place for headquarters if he wants it."

Remus turned away from the blankets he was tucking in and stared. Sirius hadn't spoken of his family's home since the day he ran away at sixteen.

"I should probably move back into the house, actually," Sirius went on, even more stiffly. "An Unplottable hideout would be useful for a wanted man." He shuddered. "I'm sure it's absolutely filthy in there, after standing empty for ten years. There was a house elf, but he never was much good for anything, and by now he'd be really old, if he's alive at all..."

Remus gently extricated the damp towel from his friend's grasp, but Sirius didn't seem to notice. "I never thought I'd go back," he muttered. "Hateful old place." He shook his head irritably and sighed. "I'll just have to make sure I'm off on Order missions most days, so I won't have to spend too much time there."

"Sounds like a pretty good place for Order headquarters, if it's Unplottable." Remus wasn't entirely sure what to say.

Sirius turned his sharp gaze on Remus again. "The thing is, Moony, I could use a hand cleaning out the house, and you're the tidiest bloke I've ever seen. Do you think—would you come along and help me get it straightened up?" He gave a deliberately casual shrug. "You could stay there too, if you wanted. There's plenty of bedrooms, all unused." He smiled grimly. "I can't promise it will be any more cheerful than this flat, but at least you'd have a lot more space."

A house abandoned for ten years, and inhabited by Dark wizards before that... Frankly, the prospect of cleaning it out sounded rather daunting. Remus knew better than most how many doxies, ghouls, spiders, and boggarts they were likely to encounter, let alone cursed and dangerous objects and furniture.

But he also knew, better than most, that Sirius Black didn't always say everything he was thinking.

This might actually be a plea for help, for someone to stand with Sirius when he went to confront the ghosts of his past.

Or, it might be Sirius's way of trying to pick up where they had left off, before missions and secrets and suspicions had begun to unravel the most important friendships of Remus's life. To start "looking after Moony," as he and James (and Peter, for a time) had done so many years ago.

Either way, it seemed that Sirius might be extending a metaphorical hand. Looking for an opportunity to make their friendship real again.

Remus looked around at his tiny, shabby, _perfect_ flat, where he was content. Self-sufficient. Safe from any further heartbreak and disappointment.

Where he was alone.

Remus took a deep breath, looked Sirius in the eye, and grinned.

"Absolutely, Padfoot," he said, lightly. "If there are cobwebs that need clearing out, I'm the one for the job."

His flat would still be perfect—for full moons, anyway.

~o~o~o~


	2. The First Mission

o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o

"Molly...am I right in thinking  
that I can count on you and Arthur?"  
—_Goblet of Fire,_ chapter 36

"Percy and Dad had a row," said Fred.  
"I've never seen Dad row with anyone like that.  
It's normally Mum who shouts..."  
—_Order of the Phoenix,_ chapter 4

o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o

Molly held her spine straight and her chin high as the spiral staircase carried her relentlessly upward. She prayed that no one would be able to see how badly she was shaking. At least she had the warmth of Arthur's hand on her arm, which helped quite a bit. And in any case, she was a Gryffindor. She _had_ to be brave.

_Gideon and Fabian were Gryffindors too,_ an insistent little voice reminded her. _Didn't do them a lot of good in the end._ Swallowing, she gave her head a sharp shake and tried to shut the voice out. This was _important._ She was fully committed to the cause.

If only she could stop trembling like a silly _leaf._

The door at the top of the stairs was open, spilling warm light from the Headmaster's office, but Molly suddenly found herself rooted to the floor. Arthur gave her arm a gentle squeeze, and she turned back to look into his eyes. The steady resolution she saw there was enough to turn her around again and propel her through the door.

And once she was inside, there was nowhere to go but forward.

Dumbledore stood and came out from behind his desk to clasp each of their hands in turn, candlelight glinting on his half-moon spectacles. He looked tired, but he wore a reassuring smile. Minerva McGonagall nodded grimly in greeting and shut the door with a tiny but portentous click. Dumbledore's fabled phoenix, watching them intently from his perch, gave one soft, liquid note and fell silent again.

"Thank you both for coming," said Dumbledore. "And please let me express my deepest apologies to Misters Fred and George Weasley for the message I sent you." His eyes twinkled briefly. "Circumstances forced me to cast unwarranted aspersions on their good names."

"Not at all," said Arthur at once. "We rather suspected that you weren't really calling us here to discuss Fred and George's detentions."

"Their, er, reputation for creativity seemed a plausible reason for asking you to talk with me and with their Head of House at the end of the term." Dumbledore smiled at McGonagall, standing rigidly by the door like a sentinel. "Minerva is, of course, an invaluable member of the Order of the Phoenix herself."

Then he turned to Molly, his blue gaze suddenly so keen it made her feel cold. "You told me last week in the hospital wing that I could count on you. Are you still willing to join us?"

"Yes. Certainly." Molly managed to keep her voice completely steady.

"If you're looking for new members for the Order," Arthur added, "then Molly and I will be proud to stand with you." He tightened his hold on her arm for just an instant, and she sent him a shaky smile.

Dumbledore nodded soberly. "I'm glad to hear it. The more of us there are who are willing to stand together against Voldemort—" Molly flinched to hear the name spoken aloud, and she saw Arthur do the same—"the stronger we will be."

"What do you need us to do?" she asked.

"Alas, none of us knows what may be required before this struggle is over." The detached calm of the old wizard's voice made those words far more frightening than histrionics would have done, and Molly felt a painful knot tighten in her stomach.

But then Dumbledore smiled again, and his eyes were kind. "At first, though, there are a number of small but essential tasks that we must take up. Let us make ourselves comfortable while we discuss them."

A cluster of armchairs appeared around a small table that was already set for tea. Molly seated herself next to Arthur, and Dumbledore chose the place on her other side, leaving McGonagall to perch stiffly across the silver tea tray from her. Dumbledore waved his wand and the tea service began to pour for them. It knew, somehow, that Molly took her tea with plenty of milk, but Arthur preferred lemon.

"I can go on as I've done this week," Arthur offered, "looking for people who might be ready to hear the truth about You-Know-Who, although it's hard to say very much without sending someone running to Fudge." He looked thoughtful. "It might also help for me to simply find out as much as I can about what's going on inside the Ministry."

"Precisely. If Cornelius intends to be obstructive, then we need to know what he is trying to do so that we can circumvent it." Dumbledore sipped his tea. "There is an Auror, Kingsley Shacklebolt, who is also working for the Order; you may wish to become acquainted with him if you can manage to do so."

"I've met Shacklebolt... Wait a minute." Arthur looked up sharply. "Isn't he the one in charge of the Black case?"

"Yes, he is." Dumbledore turned his piercing gaze on Arthur this time. "I imagine Molly has told you that I am aware of Sirius's whereabouts. But he is an innocent man, and I will do everything in my power to keep him away from the dementors and out of Azkaban." He smiled in a way that managed to be both sympathetic and unyielding. "Will it be too difficult for you, as a Ministry employee, to conceal the knowledge that I have chosen to defy the Ministry and keep Sirius safe?"

Arthur was silent for a moment, but then he slowly shook his head. "If you truly believe that Black is innocent, I will help you protect him."

Dumbledore nodded, looking pleased. "It might make this easier for you if I assure you that Sirius would do absolutely anything for Harry, and Harry is quite fond of his godfather."

Molly remembered the yearning look she had seen in Harry's eyes as Black grasped his hand and took his leave—and the memory gave her an ugly twinge of jealousy. _Stop that,_ she scolded herself. _It's good for Harry to have more people who care about him._

"So Arthur will gather information for the Order at the Ministry," she forced herself to say, dragging her attention back to the conversation. "But what can I do?" Her pulse pounded in her ears.

Dumbledore hesitated. "Molly, I'm afraid I must ask something rather unpleasant of you." She started to feel sick, but he held up a hand and quickly added, "It's not dangerous—at least, not _very_ dangerous—it's merely unpleasant. Sirius has offered us his family's house to use as Order headquarters. It's an excellent choice, as the house is right in London and is protected by any number of security charms. But it has been standing empty for a good ten years, so it's in need of a thorough decontamination before we can actually use it."

_Housecleaning?_ Molly took a deep breath and relaxed her white-knuckled grip on her teacup. After all the frightening things she'd been imagining all week Dumbledore would ask of her, the prospect of housecleaning was positively _comforting._ She met Dumbledore's eyes with genuine confidence. "Leave it to me. I'll have the house usable in no time."

"It will be a bit more than dust and spiders, though," Dumbledore warned her. "As I'm sure you know, the Black family was rather deeply involved with the Dark Arts for generations. You'll need to watch out for cursed or Dark objects as you go through the house."

Molly nodded, still feeling up to the challenge. Maybe she could consult with Bill about the trickier curses. It would give her an excuse to have him home for a visit, anyway.

"Fortunately, you won't have to do it all on your own," said Dumbledore, more lightly now. "Sirius plans to move back into the house, so he'll be there to help."

Molly swallowed. _He's innocent,_ she reminded herself. _It's not as though I'll be working side-by-side with an actual cold-blooded murderer._

Dumbledore was watching her carefully. "I will be the first to admit that Sirius can be a bit difficult sometimes. He always did have an obstinate streak, and spending twelve years in Azkaban has not improved his temper. But he is a good man at heart, and if you are kind to him he will be a loyal friend."

Molly nodded, feeling a sudden surge of pity for the man. It must have been simply dreadful to be in prison for so long, and he hadn't even done anything to deserve it. She frowned thoughtfully. From the quick glimpse she'd had of Black in the hospital wing, it seemed he could benefit from some good home cooking. _I'll bet no one's looked after him in years, the poor thing._

"There is another Order member who will be staying at the house to help out, as well," Dumbledore went on. "An old friend of Sirius's. Your younger children already know him—he taught Defence Against the Dark Arts here last year. His name is Remus Lupin."

Molly nearly dropped her teacup, so she set it hastily down on the table. "Lupin?" she gasped. "That's the werewolf!" She stared at Dumbledore in disbelief. "You're asking me to spend my days cleaning house with a _werewolf?_"

The light blue eyes behind the half-moon spectacles were suddenly rather sad. Dumbledore put down his own teacup and took her hands, looking straight into her soul again, although his gaze was gentle this time. "Let me assure you that you will _like_ Remus. He did not ask for his affliction, and he does everything he can to live an exemplary life in spite of it. Until last year, only a very few people even knew he was a werewolf. But now that he's been written up in the _Prophet,_ perfect strangers treat him harshly. He may never find steady employment again. And yet, aside from one night each month, he is kind, dependable, and courteous to a fault." He released her hands, and his kindly smile returned. "Didn't your children like him when he was teaching here?"

"They did," Molly admitted, grudgingly. "Ginny and Ron were particularly taken with him, but Percy and the twins liked him too."

"I think you will find that your children have good judgment," McGonagall broke in. "Remus was one of my favourite Gryffindors. Sirius too, actually, but certainly Remus."

Molly frowned at her teacup. Working with Black was one thing—all she had to do was remember that he _wasn't_ a murderer, no matter what people thought. He was just a misunderstood man who needed looking after. But Lupin? He was a werewolf! Could she really bring herself to spend day after day in the company of a Dark creature?

"Molly." Dumbledore's voice was soft but insistent. "We need everyone we can possibly find to join together against Voldemort. I promise that you will be in no danger from Remus, as he will spend full moons away from headquarters, and for the rest of the month he is as human as you or I." He leaned toward her, waiting, until she raised her head and met his eyes. "Will you help get the house in order?"

She straightened her spine once more, swallowing the cold lump of fear that had crept up her throat. Defeating You-Know-Who was the most important thing. She could get used to working alongside a..._werewolf_—couldn't she?

"All right," she announced, feeling almost reckless. "I'll get started as soon as you like."

~o~o~o~

They spent the next half hour discussing logistics and security for the new headquarters, and Molly was able to put worrisome thoughts of Dark creatures right out of her head. In fact, the fussy business of sorting out dozens of Things to Do calmed her more than anything else would have done. She actually forgot to be anxious about joining the Order at all—until the moment when Dumbledore and McGonagall were bidding them farewell at the door to the Headmaster's office.

Dumbledore took a deep breath and put a hand on the younger man's arm. "Arthur." He seemed to speak with great reluctance. "I'm afraid I must ask you to be particularly careful about Percy."

The two men exchanged a significant look, and Arthur nodded grimly. "I will."

As soon as the door had closed and they were on their way back down the moving staircase, Molly turned to Arthur with a worried frown. "What was that about Percy?" She'd been sensing a certain amount of tension between her husband and her third son lately, but for once, Arthur hadn't been confiding in her. She didn't know what was going on, and she didn't like that at all.

Even now, Arthur merely gave her a rather preoccupied smile. "It may be nothing. I'll talk to him tonight, and we'll see."

Molly felt icy tendrils of fear curling around her heart again.

~o~o~o~

"Ron, stop nibbling at the roast and _put_ the platter on the _table!_ Ginny, for the last time, will you _please_ pour the pumpkin juice? Fred! George! What are you _doing?_ That's _enough!_"

Caught up in the familiar chaos that was dinnertime at the Burrow, Molly could almost forget that less than an hour before, she had been meeting with the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, coolly hatching plans to stop the resurgence of the Darkest wizard of the age. But once the six of them were seated around the table, Arthur's words brought the new reality crashing in again.

"All right, you lot, there's something important we need to talk about."

The deadly serious undertone in their father's voice must have been apparent even to the children, because for once, they quieted down right away.

"You heard what Harry said happened at the end of the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament," he began, looking from one curious face to the next.

"You mean," said Fred around a mouthful of mashed potatoes, "the bit about You-Know-Who being back?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "that's exactly what I mean." He looked at each of his youngest children again, searchingly. "The Minister insists that Harry is lying, or at least out of his mind."

"Yeah, I know," said Ron, scowling. "I heard Fudge say that himself."

"I need to know where all of you stand," said Arthur, his voice quiet but steely. "Are you with Harry, and Professor Dumbledore? Or are you with the Minister?"

"But Dad, you're—"

"Ginny. Please just answer the question."

"I'm with Harry." Her eyes flashed. "He would _never_ lie, not about something like this."

"Dad, you should have seen how messed up he was after the Third Task," Ron put in, thumping his glass on the table for emphasis. "He was _not_ making that up."

"Fred? George?"

"We're behind Harry one hundred percent," George declared, exchanging a mysterious glance with Fred, who nodded firmly.

Arthur let out a breath. "Then—are all of you willing to spend the summer helping Professor Dumbledore work against You-Know-Who? With a plan so secret that part of it's under the Fidelius Charm?"

All four of them sat bolt upright, eyes wide with excitement and pride. "Dumbledore wants _us_ to help?" breathed Ron. "That's—_wow._"

Molly beamed at her children. "I _knew_ we could count on you to do your part."

~o~o~o~

Unfortunately, once Molly had explained things, the mood soured rather quickly.

"_Housecleaning?_" Ginny was incredulous.

The twins were no happier. "You want us to spend our entire summer holiday—"

"—our _last_ summer holiday—"

"—shut up in a great, filthy house?"

"And what do you mean, I'm not allowed to write to Harry about what we're doing?" Ron's ears were redder than his hair.

"Oh, so now it's, 'Good luck with You-Know-Who and all, but the Weasley children have better things to do'!" Molly's hands were on her hips, and she called up a glare potent enough to neutralize a Cheering Charm. "Is that what you want me to tell Professor Dumbledore?"

The complaints faded into silence.

"No, Mum." Ginny spoke first, looking fixedly at her plate. "If this is what Dumbledore wants, I'll do it."

"Yeah, me too," Ron mumbled.

The twins looked at each other, sighed, and nodded.

"But can we have a day off, every now and then, for Quidditch practice?" asked Fred hopefully.

"Our House needs us to be in prime shape in September, you know," George added. "We can't let Gryffindor down."

Molly forced back the chuckle that always threatened to escape when the twins went all innocent on her. "Well, let's see what Professor Dumbledore says."

With that, they all got down to the serious business of supper. Molly was pleased to see that the prospect of joining in the struggle against You-Know-Who didn't seem to diminish anyone's appetite.

And then, just as she began to pass heaping bowls of potatoes and peas around the table for second helpings, the kitchen door rattled open and Percy appeared.

"Welcome home, dear! You're early tonight!" Molly hurried to set a place for the son who worked such long hours that he usually ate alone, well after the others had finished.

Instead of coming to take his seat at the table, however, Percy stood in the middle of the kitchen with his shoulders thrown back and his chest puffed up with pride. "I've had some good news," he announced. "I've been promoted!" A wide smile spread across his face. "As of today, I am Junior Assistant to the Minister."

"Oh, _Percy!_" Molly hurried around the table from where she'd been laying his place to give him a delighted hug. "I'm so _proud_ of you!" She shushed the twins, who were already teasing Percy in posh accents, and turned to Arthur, wanting to see his pride in the son who'd followed in his footsteps at the Ministry.

But Arthur's face was oddly closed. In fact, he looked—worried.

Molly felt her own smile vanish.

"Junior Assistant to the Minister?" Arthur repeated, as though he were examining the words. "It's a bit unusual to end up in a position like that after only one year at the Ministry, don't you think?"

"Yes, it is," said Percy, the smile broader than ever. "Shows how well the Minister thinks of me!"

But now even Molly was frowning. Had Percy's first year really been that outstanding? There had been that nasty business with poor Mr. Crouch, after all, and the inquiry...

"Percy," said Arthur carefully, "you've been working very hard, and I'm sure Fudge appreciates that. But—" He shook his head helplessly, as though he didn't want to go on. "This just isn't how things are normally done at the Ministry, son." He sighed. "You need to be careful. It's possible that Fudge is _using_ you, for—for purposes of his own."

Percy's eyes narrowed. "Are you suggesting that he's only promoted _me_ to teach _you_ a lesson? To remind you that loyalty pays, and that it's foolish to listen to Dumbledore's delusions?"

No one around the table moved or said a word. Even Ron had stopped chewing, staring first at his father and then at his brother.

"Well, I resent that insinuation!" Percy's fists were clenched. "Fudge knows I'm loyal to the Ministry, and he knows I've been trying all week to talk you round, but your stubbornness has got nothing to do with this promotion! I deserve it!"

"I'm sure you deserve a promotion," said Arthur quickly. "But don't you think we have to wonder about _this_ promotion? One that puts you right in the Minister's own office, only one year out of school?"

Molly's heart sank. She understood now—Fudge must want to use Percy as a way to try to get information about Arthur, and maybe even about Dumbledore. When Percy realized what was going on, it would be such a disappointment, poor boy.

Then her heart _stopped._ What she saw on Percy's face wasn't disappointment at all, or even embarrassment. It was outright anger, sullen and resentful.

"You're just trying to take this—this _triumph_—away from me," he said heatedly. "You're jealous! Just because you've never amounted to much in your own career!"

Arthur sat motionless, staring at his son. A dull red flush crept up from his neck.

Molly felt her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. She thought of Percy as a small boy, carrying Arthur's oldest briefcase around the house, playing "Ministry." How could he say such horrible things to his own father?

But Percy wasn't finished. "You could have been anything! You could have been head of some important department by now, if you'd really _tried._ We could've had _more_—new clothes every year—new schoolbooks—a nice house—"

Arthur stood with a lurch, knocking his chair over. His face was white now, except for one red spot that burned on each cheek.

Molly started to cry quietly into her napkin.

Now that Percy had started, it seemed he couldn't stop. "Do you know how hard it's been for me at work this last year, being your son? You've let your ridiculous obsession with Muggles make you a laughing-stock all over the Ministry!"

"That is ENOUGH!" Arthur roared.

The kitchen was filled with a ringing silence. No one could remember the last time Arthur Weasley had raised his voice in anger.

"I've made the choices I have because they were _right!_" Arthur was still shouting. "Muggles _deserve_ respect and protection from magical mistreatment!" He took a step toward Percy, who backed away. "And Cornelius Fudge is dead wrong about You-Know-Who!"

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. Percy stepped forward again, his face every bit as white as Arthur's. "Minister Fudge knows what he's doing! Dumbledore is a doting old fool, trying to relive the glories of his past!"

Molly cried harder. This was the boy who'd been beside himself with pride when Dumbledore had made him Head Boy only two years before. How had things gone so very wrong?

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?" Arthur's face was inches away from Percy's.

"You heard me!" Now Percy was shouting, too. "This delusion will not last! Dumbledore's ridiculous fearmongering will be exposed for the empty threat it is! His supporters will never have positions of power in the Ministry again!" He drew himself up and took a deep breath. "And I will not join the losing side! I will not jeopardize my career for a crazy old man's fantasies!" He swallowed. "I've tried all week to change your mind about Dumbledore, Dad. But if you and Mum insist on turning against the Minister and the voices of reason, I'll make sure that everyone knows that—that I am _no part of this family!_"

He spun around and stormed up the stairs.

In the kitchen, no one moved, except Arthur, who righted his chair, sat on it with a thump, and sawed violently at his slice of roast. Molly hiccoughed into her napkin, trying to stop the tears. Percy didn't really mean all that. He _couldn't_.

Banging and scraping noises filtered down from upstairs, and then Percy came charging back down with his briefcase in one hand and a suitcase in the other. He wrenched the door open without a word to anyone.

"Percy?" Molly pleaded.

He stopped, turning halfway round, but he wouldn't look at her.

"Where are you going?"

"London," he ground out through clenched teeth. "I'll stay with friends tonight, and get a place of my own first thing. _I_ can afford it. I got a _promotion._"

And then the door slammed. Percy was gone.

~o~o~o~

Late that night, Molly lay in bed, staring into the darkness. Arthur's temper was a fearsome thing once provoked, but he never stayed angry very long. Surely Percy would come to his senses in a day or two, and all of this would just blow over. She wouldn't worry about him. She _wouldn't._

She ought to be thinking about her mission for the Order instead.

But the cold fear that she'd been able to push aside in Dumbledore's office, when they were busy talking about Floo security under Fidelius or the most effective doxycide, came back tenfold now that she was lying quietly in the dark.

"Arthur?"

He was curled up on his side with his back to her, and she felt him stiffen.

"Have you ever met a werewolf?"

Arthur relaxed. He'd probably been worried that she wanted to talk about Percy. But for heaven's sake, she knew better than to bring _that_ up before he'd cooled off.

"A few," he said, rolling over to face her.

"What are they like?"

The silvery crescent moon outside their window gave just enough light for her to watch him frown, considering.

"That's a bit like asking what _wizards_ are like, isn't it?" said Arthur at last. "They're all different. Some of them are hostile. Some of them are resentful of wizardkind and prefer to keep to themselves. But most of them are probably decent folks, just trying to make ends meet." He ran a gentle hand over her hair and pulled her close. "This Lupin fellow sounds like he's all right, don't you think? Dumbledore and McGonagall both spoke highly of him."

"I suppose," said Molly dubiously, resting her head on Arthur's shoulder and closing her eyes at last.

But her dreams that night were filled with terrifying images of huge, bloodthirsty monsters.

~o~o~o~


	3. A Long Summer

~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~

He heard a soft hissing noise and then old-fashioned gas lamps  
sputtered into life all along the walls, casting a flickering insubstantial light  
over the peeling wallpaper and threadbare carpet of a long gloomy hallway,  
where a cobwebby chandelier glimmered overhead and  
age-blackened portraits hung crooked on the walls.  
—_Order of the Phoenix,_ chapter 4

"A werewolf?" whispered Mrs. Weasley, looking alarmed.  
—_Order of the Phoenix,_ chapter 22

~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~

"You awake, Padfoot?" Remus rattled the knob of the door to the second-floor bedroom that the heir of the House of Black had chosen yesterday. It wasn't, he thought, Sirius's boyhood room. "They'll be here any minute."

The door opened and Sirius slouched through, dressed but still yawning. "Bugger this. I don't see why we have to start cleaning at _nine_ in the bloody _morning._"

Remus chuckled and gave him a nearly gentle nudge with a convenient elbow. "Molly's owl promised something nice for breakfast. Surely that's worth waking up for."

Sirius looked unconvinced, but he grunted and led the way downstairs.

It was a sunny morning, Remus knew, because he'd managed to charm open the heavy floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains in his own room. But the corridors and stairways of the house on Grimmauld Place were dark as midnight. The soft glow from his wand fell on what appeared to be gas lamps mounted here and there on the walls, but they were not in working order. Not _yet,_ Remus amended firmly. Light would be a priority.

Cobwebs clung to their robes as they brushed past. They had simply been too busy the day before, working with Moody and Dumbledore to check the old security spells and set the necessary new ones, to make any headway on the housecleaning beyond their own two bedrooms and a place for Buckbeak. And so the rest of the house was thick with cobwebs—except for the lowest few feet, where Kreacher the house-elf appeared to have kept them cleared away. Some of the webs had occupants, too, hairy black spiders a little larger than Remus would have liked. He shot a Shrinking Spell at every one he saw.

"I wonder how Molly and the children feel about spiders," he mused.

Sirius shrugged. "Not _my_ fault if they don't know what to expect in an abandoned house."

Remus rolled his eyes under cover of darkness. It would be a long summer indeed if _certain people_ planned on being uncooperative the whole time.

Or maybe Sirius was just sleepy. He never had been one for mornings.

They reached the ground floor, followed the hall to the back of the house, and picked their way down one more stairway, because the Floo connection in the basement kitchen was the only one Dumbledore had allowed them to keep open. It would be safe enough; with the house itself under the Fidelius Charm, only those who knew the Secret could Floo in at all.

The kitchen was pitch-black beyond their small circles of wandlight, and it was hung just as thickly with cobwebs as the rest of the house. A carpet of dust covered the stone floor, except for the places where they had disturbed it yesterday in the course of their spellwork, and another spot by a low cupboard where there were many sets of house-elf footprints.

"Kreacher could be keeping things just a _bit _ cleaner." Sirius scowled. "Little blighter."

Remus raised his wand, illuminating the heavy iron chandeliers above the long kitchen table. Wonder of wonders, they still held candles.

It took multiple applications of _Evanesco_—the cobwebs were thick and sticky enough to resist even magic—but he got one chandelier cleaned up and lit it. The sudden increase in light, dim as it was, made him blink. Now he could see Sirius across the room, emerging from a deep cupboard with a dusty bottle of firewhisky in one hand.

"How's this, Moony?" The scion of the house grinned rather wickedly. "It'll be just what we need tonight, after a full day of ruddy housecleaning."

Remus grinned back, glad that Sirius was recovering his sense of humour. "I see you knew right where to look for that."

The old grandfather clock upstairs began to groan out the chimes for nine o'clock. With a sigh of resignation, Sirius stashed his bottle back in the cupboard and went to light a fire in the fireplace. Remus moved further into the shadows, attacking another chandelier with a series of rapid and persistent _Evanescos._ He was determined to make the kitchen a little less gloomy, if it was to be the first part of the house that Molly and the children would see.

Almost as soon as Sirius had the fire lit, though, a spinning figure appeared in the grate, and then a small plump woman clutching an enormous wicker basket stepped out into the kitchen. She looked a little breathless from the Floo trip, and her eyes widened as she took in the dust and the cobwebs, but her face wore an expression of relentless friendliness.

The new arrival squared her shoulders and offered her hand with a bright smile. "Hello, Sirius. I'm Molly Weasley." Even in the feeble light, Remus could see her turn rather pink. "We, erm, met in the hospital wing at Hogwarts."

Sirius had told Remus, with great glee, about Molly's bloodcurdling shriek when he reverted to human form at Dumbledore's request. Remus paused in the midst of his scramble to illuminate the kitchen, wondering if he should ride to her rescue, but Sirius merely bowed over her hand and took the basket with effortless grace.

"It's a pleasure, Molly." He smiled, only slightly bitterly. "Welcome to the Gloomy and Most Filthy House of Black."

Remus grinned to himself and turned back to the cobwebs clinging stubbornly to the stubby candles in the second chandelier. It was always amusing to watch Sirius play the role of gracious host, and it fit him all the better in this house, no matter how much he might hate being here.

"I need to Floo the children and have them join us—I didn't want to bring the whole crowd through at once—but do have a crumpet first." Molly gestured at the basket. "There's butter, and my strawberry jam." She smiled perkily again, reminding Remus of a newly Sorted student worried about finding a seat at her House table. "I thought it might have been a while since you'd had fresh crumpets."

Sirius's eyes lit up, just as they had always done when James or Peter nicked something particularly good from the Hogwarts kitchens. "Ta. We love crumpets with jam—" He stopped and looked around, frowning. "Remus? Where'd you go?"

"I'm right here." With a nonverbal _Incendio,_ Remus lit the now-clean chandelier, and the flare of light made Molly jump. "Sorry about that." He gave her an apologetic half-grin as he crossed the room to join the other two by the fireplace. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"Molly," said Sirius expansively, still in full lord-of-the-manor mode, "this is my old friend, Remus Lupin."

"I'm delighted to meet you, Molly." Remus extended a hand and a warm smile. He had liked the Weasley children very well at Hogwarts, and he knew the whole family had been good to Harry. "We certainly appreciate your kind offer to help with the decontamination."

But Molly merely stood and stared, making no move to take his hand. Her eyes were huge and dark, and her pulse beat wildly in her throat; she looked for all the world like a small animal that had been cornered by a—

Remus lowered his hand and concentrated on keeping his smile from slipping, his face from reddening. Stepping back, he turned away, toward the table. "Let me see if I can clean this off a bit, so we'll have a spot to set the basket down." He busied himself with _Evanescos_ again. "The crumpets smell lovely."

He heard Molly start breathing again as he moved further away from her. "Th—thank you, Remus."

Sirius deposited the basket onto the table and crossed his arms over his chest, looking sullen.

_Oh, for Merlin's sake,_ Remus sighed inwardly. _Someone_ had to remember his manners, and it clearly wasn't going to be the lord of the manor after all.

His stomach felt like lead, but Remus reached into the basket and extracted a crumpet. It was still hot. He broke it in two, balancing the pieces in one hand, and waved butter and jam onto it with a twist of his wand.

"Delicious," he pronounced, smiling carefully at Molly again—the mildest, least threatening smile he could produce; he was pretty sure he'd even been able to keep the resignation out. "Go on, Sirius, have one."

There was no response.

Remus looked from Sirius, in the midst of a fit of the sulks, to Molly, edging slowly away from him even as she pasted a nervous grin across her face.

It was going to be a _very_ long summer.

~o~o~o~

About a century later, the first day of housecleaning was finally over.

The Weasleys wouldn't be staying overnight until enough bedrooms had been decontaminated—which meant a reprieve, at least for tonight. Even as the last redhead was disappearing into the Floo, Sirius hurled himself at the spider-filled cupboard and came out clutching the bottle he'd been dreaming of _all ruddy day long._

He performed a perfunctory cleaning charm on a pair of antique tumblers and poured three fingers of whisky into each, pushing one across the newly cleaned kitchen table toward Remus. Then he tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and let the liquor slide down his throat, burning all the way. He sat still for a minute and waited for the tingle in his hands and feet that spoke of really good firewhisky, well aged.

Sighing in blessed relief, he looked up to find Remus watching him, eyes twinkling in his tired, slightly grimy face.

"That bad, eh?"

"Gah." Sirius poured himself another three fingers. "Mages preserve us from that woman!"

Remus laughed and reached for his own glass. "I know Dumbledore essentially forced all these Weasleys on you. But really, decontaminating the house would be a lot more work if it were just the two of us. And Molly _means_ well."

"Does she?" Sirius heard how hard his voice sounded, but he didn't much care.

Remus sipped at his drink and nodded firmly. "She does. She's only getting on your nerves because she's trying _too_ hard to be nice to you."

"Shows what you know." Sirius slammed his tumbler down on the table, spilling blue flame. "I'm hacked at Molly because of how she's treating _you._"

Remus blinked at him, looking surprised.

_Surprised._

Sirius felt rage come boiling up like a cauldron full of seething Stinksap Potion. "Bloody _hell,_ Remus!"

"Sirius—"

"There's no _way_ you haven't noticed. She has no right to tiptoe around you acting all suspicious and afraid. This is _my_ house and you are _my_ friend and you are worth a _dozen_ of her with her meddling questions and her picky little household spells—"

_"Sirius."_

There was steel in that voice. Sirius stopped short, mid-rant.

Moony wasn't twenty-one any more. Sirius forgot that, sometimes. Now he stared at the greying hair, at the new lines carved into a once familiar face. At the brown eyes whose spark of laughter had suddenly been replaced by weary resignation.

"This is how things are, now." Remus took another sip of firewhisky, and smiled at him, although the smile was bleak. "People know what I am, and they...react accordingly."

Sirius thought of a twelve-year-old boy, tall and gangly, white with shock and terror one post-moon night in Gryffindor Tower. _"You've got to promise me. All of you! Promise me you won't tell anyone—ever. If people find out, that's the end. I'll never finish school, never find a job—never have a chance to prove I'm just as good as everyone else."_

"It's a relief, in a way." Remus reached for the bottle and poured himself another drink. "I never realised how much effort it took, always hiding things and worrying about being exposed. Now there's no need for any of that."

Sirius watched his friend's face settle into a mild, neutral expression. It might as well have been a brick wall for all that Sirius could read in it.

Moony had changed, all right. He had always worked to keep his face and his voice under careful control, thanks to the dark secret he carried. But it hadn't taken long for his friends to learn to read him. And Sirius had been the best of the lot at knowing what Remus was thinking.

Now he couldn't see through the mask at all.

Sirius took another gulp of firewhisky to cover a sudden shiver.

"All right," he said, "so you're known as a werewolf. That doesn't mean you have to _expect_ people to treat you like rubbish." He scowled. "And it certainly doesn't give Molly the right to act like you're some kind of criminal. For Merlin's sake, Moony, the children aren't like that! They know about you, and they like you well enough."

"They do." Remus's smile warmed a little. "Today was the first I'd seen them since I left Hogwarts—I didn't know quite what to expect. Ron wasn't exactly thrilled in the Shack that night, you'll remember."

"Yeah," Sirius granted, "he had a bit of a shock at first. But then he offered to be chained to the rat, alongside you. Ron's a good kid."

"Hermione will be all right, too, don't you think?" Remus fiddled with his glass. "She said she had figured me out long before she told Harry and Ron, and it didn't seem to bother her when she spoke with me after lessons."

Sirius laughed. "_That_ one? Not a problem. Once Harry's here, you should ask him what she got up to last year, about the house-elves."

"You see, though," said Remus, his smile turning wry, "the children all knew me before they knew what I was. Molly, on the other hand, met a werewolf today." He shrugged. "It makes a difference."

Sirius shook his head. "Then she's a closed-minded bigot, condemning you before she knows a thing about you outside of what happens one night a month."

Remus was suddenly very interested in his drink. He tilted the tumbler and turned it in his hands so that the pale golden firewhisky left brief ribbons along the sides of the glass. When he spoke, his words were almost too quiet to hear.

"It's human nature to be distrustful of a werewolf." One corner of his mouth turned up again, but he kept his gaze fixed on his whisky. "You lot were, too, when everything started going to hell around us."

"Is _that_ what you thought?"

Sirius felt as though a heavy fist had slammed into his stomach.

Had Remus believed, for the two long years since that night in the Shack, that _all _ his friends had turned against him?

Because of his lycanthropy?

"It's what happened." Remus looked up now, but his face was unreadable again.

"No. It was _not_ because you're a werewolf." Sirius swallowed. "And it wasn't everyone. It was only me."

Remus stared.

Sirius stared back as understanding began to dawn. "Of course you don't know. I was the only one who could've told you." He held his old friend's gaze. "You need to hear this, Remus."

Remus set down his tumbler.

"I swear to you, on the graves in Godric's Hollow, that James and Lily never doubted you. _Never._ They gave me hell for being such a suspicious bastard." Sirius ran a hand over his face. "They were right, and I was wrong, and it was all of you who had to pay for my blindness." He shuddered, overcome by a wave of loss and grief and the soul-deep cold of dementors keeping watch.

The warm touch of a hand on his shoulder brought him back.

"Those were bad times," said Remus quietly. "No one knew what to think."

"It wasn't that I thought for sure you _were_ the spy," said Sirius desperately. For all that Remus's hand was gentle on his arm, the mask was still very securely in place. "It was only that I couldn't shake the worry that you _might _be."

Remus nodded slowly and sat back, lacing his fingers together around his glass.

Sirius felt his jaw clench. "Not to make excuses, but the rat didn't help. He was always nosing around, making innuendos about you—making me wonder where you were, and why you weren't with the rest of us."

Remus sighed. "Peter did a good bit of damage to you as well, telling me he thought it would be too hard for you to abandon your family forever. Saying that maybe you were having second thoughts about fighting on the side of the Order. I thought he was being ridiculous at the time, but after..._after,_ I thought about his words again, and he had made me think I _didn't_ really know you. He made it too easy for me to believe you had been the traitor."

"Where _were_ you?" The question that had plagued Sirius for fourteen years came bursting out. "All those times we couldn't find you? Those Friday evenings you didn't spend at James and Lily's?"

Remus gave a small, tense smile. "Hillards."

Sirius stared. This was not an answer he'd ever imagined. "Hillard's? Who the hell was Hillard?"

Remus laughed humourlessly, a small huff. "No, _Hillards._ It was a Muggle grocery, up in Sheffield. Tesco bought them out, eventually, but that was...after."

Sirius drew a breath and let it out slowly. "So your deep dark secret was that you were minding the till in a Muggle grocery."

"Stocking shelves and sweeping floors, actually," said Remus. "But yes." He shook his head at his glass, and Sirius reached over to refill it. "I was ashamed, Padfoot. I was breaking Wizarding law by working at a Muggle job, and even so I was barely able to cover the rent on that horrid little flat I had. I didn't want you lot to _know._"

They stared at each other again. _Such small things,_ Sirius thought; the fragile pride of a poor young man, and the sly careful sowing of seeds of doubt.

"Look at them, sitting there brazen as anything," came a low hoarse mutter. Both of them jumped. Sirius twisted in his chair, and there was old Kreacher the house-elf, poking his head into the kitchen. "What would poor Mistress say? There were blood-traitors in this house today, Kreacher saw them, and now Kreacher sees Master, who broke Mistress's heart, and that werewolf friend of his. Scum and filth in the house of my Mistress! What should Kreacher do?"

The elf turned away, and the door slammed shut behind him.

Sirius took one look at Remus's startled expression and began to laugh in spite of himself. After a moment, Remus joined in.

"Well, Moony," Sirius choked, "there's someone who won't treat you differently because you're a werewolf. Kreacher hates all of us equally."

Remus laughed again, and Sirius thought that, just maybe, some of the wariness might have gone from his eyes.

~o~o~o~

The first few days at Grimmauld Place simply flew by. Molly didn't think she had ever been so busy in her life. But they were finally beginning to wrestle the great gloomy house into submission.

She felt a certain glow of pride on the third evening, climbing the mostly cobweb-free staircase with hissing gas lamps to light her way. There was an unimaginable amount of work left to do, of course, but there were enough usable bedrooms for all of them now, and the part of the kitchen nearest the fireplace was clean enough to cook in if you weren't _terribly_ fastidious.

"Ron?" Molly poked her head into the bedroom that Fred and George had claimed. All four children were in there, playing a game with Exploding Snap cards—which might actually _be_ Exploding Snap, or might be something a little more...creative. She decided not to look too closely. "It's about time for Hermione to arrive."

"Oh. Right." Ron jumped to his feet at once.

"That's a forfeit!" George looked smug.

"Is not." Ron scowled. "Ginny's still in—she can play my hand too." He pushed his cards at Ginny, who accepted them with a raised eyebrow, and then he turned to follow Molly down the stairs.

In the kitchen, Sirius and Lupin—_Remus,_ Molly corrected herself hurriedly; _be polite_—were sitting at the table, sharing sections of the _Evening Prophet._ Sirius looked up and nodded, more at Ron than at Molly, while Remus smiled a quiet hello to both of them.

Taking care to keep the table between herself and the werewolf, Molly settled down on the far side to wait. She pulled out another chair for Ron, but he ignored her and went to stand by the fire, fiddling listlessly with the tarnished silver tankards that crowded the mantelpiece.

Molly stole a glance across the table at her two companions. She frowned a little at the tumblers of firewhisky they were nursing. At least she hadn't ever seen either one of them drink _too_ much. She did wonder what would happen if Fred and George got their hands on the bottle, but Lupin—Remus—had insisted (with something of a twinkle in his eye) that that would not be possible. "Not even for the twins," he had said, quite firmly.

Sirius finished with his section of the _Prophet_ and pushed it aside, disordered and crumpled. Wordlessly, Remus passed Sirius the section he'd been reading, and reached for the discarded one. He spent a moment straightening each page, and then refolded the section, creasing it neatly, before he began to read it.

That was very like Remus, somehow. Molly had been surprised when she saw just how skilful his housecleaning spellwork was—she didn't _mean_ to be the old-fashioned kind of witch who thought that men couldn't be trusted to keep a house up properly, but honestly, Remus was faster and more precise with his cleaning charms than most women she knew.

He seemed to like things very tidy, Molly concluded, studying the way he folded the newspaper in half again after he turned the page. It wasn't at all what she would have expected of a werewolf.

Remus looked up and spotted her watching him. He smiled again, apparently unconcerned, but Molly felt her cheeks grow warm. She was glad when the flames in the fireplace suddenly turned green.

"Hullo!" came Arthur's voice from the hearth. "Hermione's arrived at the Burrow—shall I send her through?"

"Hi, Dad," said Ron. "Yeah, go ahead."

"All right." Arthur paused, looking sheepish. "I'll be another hour or two, Molly. There's something I need to finish tonight."

"Be careful, dear." Molly sighed. Arthur seemed to be bringing more and more work home with him these days, and until they could get the library cleaned out there was simply nowhere for him to work at Grimmauld Place.

Arthur's head disappeared and was almost immediately replaced by a bulky rotating shape, which resolved itself into a mass of bushy hair and rather a lot of luggage. Ron leapt back hastily, dodging the spinning sharp corners.

"Hello, Ron—Mrs. Weasley—Sirius—Professor Lupin!" Hermione was pink-cheeked and beaming. Molly went to hug her—or at least, the closest she could get to a hug, since the girl was carrying her cat Crookshanks in his cage in one hand and dragging her school trunk behind her with the other. But when Hermione tried to hug Molly back, she dropped the cage. The door sprang open. Crookshanks bolted and made a beeline for Sirius, hopping up on his lap and butting his hard little head up against Sirius's unshaven chin, purring all the while.

Sirius broke into a boyish grin that erased years from his gaunt face. "Look, Hermione. He remembers me!"

Molly frowned at this reminder that her youngest son and his two best friends had been very friendly with a fugitive from _Azkaban_—for heaven's sake—for the better part of a year.

But Hermione merely set down the trunk and righted the cage. "Of course he does. He's very intelligent, you know."

"I know," said Sirius quietly, scratching Crookshanks behind the ears. The ugly orange cat (or was he a Kneazle?) closed his eyes and preened.

"This is so exciting," said Hermione breathlessly, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. "Helping Professor Dumbledore! Doing something that will really make a difference!"

"Yeah," Sirius muttered, "like polishing the old family silver!"

Molly saw Remus shoot his friend a quelling look, but Hermione was busy peppering Ron with questions about the house and didn't seem to have heard.

"Oh," said Hermione suddenly, turning toward the table again. "Professor Lupin, there's something I've been wanting to ask you."

"Certainly." Remus smiled at his former student—perhaps a little cautiously, Molly thought. "What is it?"

"I was reading through the latest issue of the _Annals of Magizoology,_" she began.

Molly, looking the right way at the right time, saw Remus exchange some sort of glance with Sirius. But Hermione missed it, because Ron snorted and she paused to glare at him.

"Anyway," she continued, turning her back on Ron and crossing her arms, "there was an anonymous article about grindylows."

"Was there?" Remus's expression was completely bland. But Sirius was sniggering.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at the werewolf who had been her teacher. "You _did_ write it. Didn't you?"

"I did," he admitted, the neutral facade shifting into a wry half-grin. "How did you work that out?"

"Well, first of all, the article covered lots of things you taught in your classes!" Her eyes shone. "I had no idea at the time that you were teaching us _original research._ That's brilliant!"

Molly thought Remus looked slightly bemused by Hermione's excitement. "That's not exactly unusual, you know," he said quickly. "Professor Flitwick developed some of the Charms he teaches, and the same is true for Professor McGonagall and her Transfiguration spells."

"Still," said Hermione, "those spells have been taught for _years._ But we were the very first students to learn these new things about grindylows." She beamed at him again. "Anyway, the article _sounded_ like you. I could hear your voice in my head as I was reading it." Then she frowned. "But why didn't you sign your name to it?"

Remus smiled again, but this was a weary smile. "Can't you work that part out for yourself as well?"

Hermione's face fell. "I was hoping there was some other reason." She bit her lip. "You're saying the journal wouldn't have published it if they knew who the author was?"

Remus lifted one shoulder in acknowledgment. "Or _what._"

Sirius, who had been rubbing Crookshanks under the chin with one bony finger, glanced up sharply.

But Remus drew a deliberate breath and settled into another smile. "I quite enjoy doing the research. I'm just glad it can be published at all."

Hermione looked like she wanted to argue, but Molly didn't know how much time the children really ought to be spending with these two—Sirius swore rather a lot, and Remus was, after all, a werewolf. "Come along, dear," she coaxed. "Let's get your things upstairs. You'll be sharing a room with Ginny."

"And we're all playing—er—_cards, _ in the twins' room," Ron broke in. He pounded on up the stairs, leaving Hermione and Molly (levitating Hermione's luggage) to bring up the rear.

"Don't you think that's stupid?" Hermione persisted, pausing halfway to the first-floor landing to turn back and look at Molly. "If an article's good enough to publish, why should it matter if the person who wrote it happens to be a werewolf?"

But Molly was only half-listening; she was bracing herself, because Hermione was about to come face-to-face with the house-elf heads mounted on the wall.

~o~o~o~

The next morning, Remus went to Diagon Alley for groceries, with the key to Sirius's Gringotts vault shoved deep in his pocket. "If we're feeding the entire ruddy Order," Sirius had insisted, "we're _definitely_ using the Black family fortune. Because my sainted parents would drop dead at the thought, if they weren't already long gone." He had cut off Remus's attempt at a protest before it even got started. "It's _not_ charity. It's for the Order. Shut up and get on with the shopping."

When Remus returned to the house two hours later, his pockets full of shrunken parcels, he could hear Molly's voice and various thumping sounds coming from somewhere upstairs. He deposited the groceries in the kitchen, where Ron and Hermione were busy pulling all the dishes out of the cupboards and giving everything a thorough scrubbing. Then he slipped carefully past Mrs. Black's portrait and found Molly, Ginny, and the twins clearing cobwebs in a small study on the second floor.

"Oh, Remus," said Molly, breathless and a little wild-eyed, "I'm glad you're back." She hurried over to him, in her agitation standing a little closer than she normally dared. "I need to ask Sirius about these"—she gestured at a row of cabinets that were humming and quivering ominously—"but he's, erm, upstairs with the hippogriff." She bit her lip.

This was not a good sign. "What happened?"

"Well, Severus Snape stopped by, and he said some things, and then Sirius started shouting..."

"Ah." Remus sighed. "I'll see if I can get him to come back down." He crossed over to the stairway. "Oi! Padfoot!"

Behind him, he heard a choking sound, and someone dropped a broom. But there was no response from above.

He tried again. "It's about time for lunch! Why don't you and I take a turn making sandwiches?"

"I'm not hungry," came faintly—and sulkily—from the third floor.

"That's what you say now, but if you don't eat with us, you'll be nicking Buckbeak's ferrets long before teatime!"

Silence again.

A slow grin spread across Remus's face. He'd just realised that he had a secret weapon. "Never mind, then," he called. "I'm sure I can find someone else to drink the hot butterbeer I've brought you from the Leaky Cauldron."

Nothing for a moment. Then, thumping footsteps on the stairs. Sirius appeared, trying not to smile. "All right, Moony, you win."

Remus clapped him on the back. The two of them turned away from the staircase only to find their way blocked—Fred and George had emerged from the study and stood, transfixed, with the oddest expressions on their faces.

Sirius raised an eyebrow.

"What's the matter?" Remus asked, concerned.

The twins exchanged a glance.

"Er," said one of them. "We wanted to help you make the sandwiches."

"Well. Thank you." This was the first time that either Fred or George had shown the slightest interest in helping in the kitchen, but Remus decided to accept the offer at face value. Now that he was no longer their teacher, he preferred not to inquire too closely into the affairs of the twins. "Just let us have a look at these cabinets first."

When they reached the kitchen, they found Ron and Hermione, still surrounded by piles of sudsy crockery. The sandwich-makers claimed the table and began slicing bread, ham, cheese, and cucumbers.

"All right, George," said the twin who must be Fred, "go on, then."

George looked up from his jar of mustard and caught Remus's eye. "So if you're Moony—"

Unable to keep still after all, Fred turned to Sirius.

"—and you're Padfoot—"

"—then who's Prongs?"

Remus looked over at the dish-washers. Hermione shook her head. Ron shrugged.

Sirius, wielding a long bread knife and looking every inch the mad convict, grinned at the twins. "You saw Harry's Patronus at the Quidditch match that time, right?"

"Yeah," said Fred, "it was—oh! Prongs was Harry's dad, then?"

"Right in one," said Remus, breaking into a wide smile himself. He suddenly understood how Harry had come by the Map.

But the smile vanished when he realised what the next question was going to be. And he wasn't the only one—Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth, and Ron frowned hard at his brothers.

They didn't get the message.

"What about Wormtail?" Fred asked cheerily.

Sirius actually growled. His eyes narrowed, and he spat into the fireplace. "Wormtail is a _rat._"

Five seconds too late, George caught Fred's eye and mouthed, _Scabbers._ Fred went green.

The kitchen was frozen in painful silence. Remus took a step nearer Sirius. He saw Hermione draw a breath and try to think of something to say.

In the end, it was George who swallowed hard and soldiered on. "But that Map, though. It's absolutely brilliant! How did you lot work it out?"

Sirius blinked, met George's gaze, and began to chuckle. "Well. That's a rather long story."

Remus relaxed.

And then he realised that both of the twins were gazing, with expressions of profound awe, not only at Sirius—but at _him,_ too.

It was Remus's turn to blink.

"You'd have time to tell us, though," said Fred, hopefully, looking from one Marauder to the other. "It's going to be a long summer."

~o~o~o~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The twins-meet-Marauders scene is based on two drabbles originally posted to the Official Drabble Thread at the (late lamented) Sugar Quill. It was **Jess Pallas**'s "Oblivious" (chapter 4) that first made me think about how the twins might have discovered who the Marauders actually were, although I've taken a different approach to that revelation.


	4. A Few Surprises

~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~

"I think Dumbledore might have hoped  
that I would be able to exercise some  
control over my best friends," said Lupin.  
"I need scarcely say that I failed dismally."  
—_Order of the Phoenix,_ chapter 9

"And I'm not a very popular dinner guest  
with most of the community," said Lupin.  
"It's an occupational hazard of being a werewolf."  
—_Order of the Phoenix,_ chapter 5

~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~

_Dear Percy,_

_How have you been, dear? Is your new flat nice? Are you eating well enough? I hope that you aren't staying at the Ministry too late in the evenings, and that you're getting a little fresh air and exercise every day. You always did look a bit peaky when you were busy studying for exams—I worry about you, living all alone and working so hard._

_Percy, I know that you and your father had words, but he only wants the best for you—really he does. This will be the fifth owl I've sent since you left home. Won't you please send a note back, just to let me know that things are all right? Just a sentence or_

The words on the parchment swam out of focus, and Molly stopped writing to wipe her eyes on the corner of her apron.

Poor old Errol hooted drowsily from his perch on the back of the chair next to hers.

"You're right." Molly slumped a little. "This is no good at all."

She waved her wand, Vanishing the ink, and began again.

_Dear Percy,_

_I miss you, and I hope you are well. Please write when you get a chance. Be sure to let me know if there is anything you need._

_All my love,_  
_Mum_

"There." She sighed. That would have to do.

Molly tied the folded parchment neatly onto the leg that Errol stretched feebly in her direction. Then she coaxed the owl onto her shoulder, carried him upstairs from the kitchen, and opened a small window in the front hall to let him out.

She stood by the window until well after the tiny bedraggled speck had disappeared into the distance.

_Surely_ Percy would answer her letter this time.

Sniffing a little, Molly wiped her eyes again and turned to make her way up another flight of stairs toward the chilly, cavernous library on the first floor. As she drew closer, she could hear thumping sounds and cheery voices, and she called up a watery smile. At least the children were making progress with the cleaning.

But then she stepped through the doorway into the library and _saw_ them.

The stiff velvet curtains were still drawn. The room was still full of dust and cobwebs. And not a book had been removed from the shelves—

—except for three fat ones, which scuttled laboriously across the floor, crab-wise.

It seemed to be a race. Hermione stood looking on with a small anxious frown, but Ron and Ginny were doubled over laughing. Fred, George, and _Sirius_ each had a wand aimed at one of the clumsily flapping books.

"I've got you, George!"

"Not for long you don't!"

"Just watch—I'll get _both_ of you ginger-haired upstarts!" Sirius's gleeful roar was the loudest of all.

Molly felt something snap.

"_WHAT_ IS _THIS?_"

They all froze, and then slowly turned to face her, even Sirius. Ron winced a little. Ginny crossed her arms and raised her chin.

The books toppled over.

"I asked you children to do _one simple thing_—check for curses and organise the books! Can't I even turn my back for _one minute_ without you _completely_ disregarding my instructions and carrying on with some _ridiculous_ time-wasting _game!_"

Ginny tossed her hair over her shoulder. "You know Hermione and Ron and I can't do anything with the books until someone checks them for curses! We're underage!"

"_Well?_" Molly glared at the twins.

"There must be thousands of books in here," Fred protested. "What's the harm in having a little fun before we get started?"

"Tens of thousands." George scowled. "It's going to take the entire rest of the ruddy summer to check them all!"

Molly's head was throbbing, and she felt the prickling behind her eyes begin again. Would _no one_ in her family cooperate? And Sirius wasn't helping. For heaven's sake, he was an _adult._ He should be setting a good example for the children, not _egging_ them _on!_

Her hands found their way to her hips, and she took a deep breath, preparing for another bellow.

But then a quiet voice sounded from the doorway behind her.

"It really needn't take the rest of the summer."

Molly spun around to see Remus leaning against the doorjamb, with his hands in his pockets—and an unexpectedly sympathetic look in his eyes when they met hers.

She felt a warm flush creep across her face. How long had he been there? Had he heard her shouting at the children?

Somehow, she couldn't imagine Remus ever shouting at all.

Remus looked past her to smile at the twins. "I know a useful little spell that should be just what we need. George, Fred—you're of age, so you can try this. Watch carefully."

He strode over to one of the dozens of bookshelves, with everyone else trailing curiously after him, and pointed his wand with a little flick and a sideways flourish. "_Fodico._"

The first book on the bottom shelf glowed a soft orange.

Remus swept his wand steadily along the shelf, and each book glowed orange in turn—until one suddenly flared a violent red and leapt a good two inches into the air.

He whistled. "That one's got some pretty powerful Dark spells on it."

"Why am I not surprised?" Sirius rolled his eyes.

"This is brilliant." Fred broke into a grin. "With that trick, we'll be done in here in, what, a couple of days?"

George said nothing, but he was mimicking the odd little wrist flick with a look of deep concentration.

"You do have to be careful," Remus warned. "This method is a lot more efficient than floating the books off the shelves one by one to cast diagnostic spells. But books that aren't cursed as strongly as that one was might only twitch and turn colour a little bit." He turned to Ron, Ginny, and Hermione. "This is where you three come in. Divide yourselves up and follow along behind Fred or George. You'll be an extra pair of eyes in case some books only show subtle signs."

The younger children nodded, looking more interested than they had done in days.

George and Fred had already started trying out the spell for themselves. Three or four books glowed red and jumped.

"And there's one more thing," said Remus firmly. "Whatever you find, be sure you float it into a pile and let one of us adults look at it. I don't want to have to take any of you to the Spell Damage ward at St. Mungo's—just think of the explaining we would have to do." He looked at the children one by one. "Is that understood?"

"Yes, Professor Lupin," they chorused obediently. But their enthusiasm for the clever new spell seemed undimmed, and they set off along the library walls in two groups. Orange and red light began to fill the room.

Remus grinned after them, but when he turned back, his air of teacherly authority dropped away like a discarded cloak. He peered sideways at Molly. "I hope you didn't mind my barging in and showing the children something new."

"No, not at all. It was very helpful." She winced a little, inwardly, at how stiff she sounded, because her words were sincerely meant. "I think they're getting tired of all the cleaning."

"I wonder why _that_ would be?" Sirius growled, somewhere behind them.

Molly took a deep breath and met the quiet brown gaze squarely. "Thank you, Remus."

He smiled, maybe a little more easily than usual. "They'll probably tire of this in a few hours, too." The smile turned almost mischievous. "But there's something else I can show them when that happens."

Something else? Molly blinked. He certainly seemed to know a lot of "useful little spells." _Of course,_ she reminded herself, _he did teach Defence Against the Dark Arts._

With a polite nod, Remus left her side and went to have a look at the cursed books that were beginning to pile up in Fred and Ginny's wake.

Only then did Molly realise that she had been standing right next to him.

~o~o~o~

Sirius aimed his wand at yet another book from yet another of the piles that lay scattered across the library. It floated a few feet off the floor, and he spun it slowly in midair, letting its pages flutter open in a cloud of dust. His diagnostic spell caught a minor Itching Hex. Muttering under his breath, he removed the hex and dropped the book on top of a stack ready for reshelving.

He stretched, restlessly, feeling his shoulders pop, before turning back to his pile.

But then he just stood and glowered. After two tedious hours, his wand felt too heavy to lift. _If I have to decontaminate one more book, I swear I'll—_

A Patronus swept into the room and made a wide circle around Sirius before homing in on Remus, who stood checking his own pile of books on the other side of the library.

It was a phoenix.

Dumbledore.

Boredom forgotten, Sirius hurried after the Patronus, rocking forward on his toes to listen as it delivered its message.

_"Remus, I will be arriving at headquarters in twenty minutes' time. Molly tells me that the _ _decontamination of the house is proceeding smoothly, so I have another mission for you to carry out this afternoon."_

"A mission!" Sirius grinned at Remus. "It's about time we got let out of this house! What do you suppose he wants us to do?"

Remus looked up quickly, and opened his mouth, but said nothing after all. In the end, he settled on an uneasy half-smile. "I suppose we'll find out in twenty minutes' time."

Sirius glanced over his shoulder at the pile of books he'd been checking—and the pile behind that, and the one behind that, and on and on into the gloom of the library.

He turned back to Remus with a bright, innocent smile that made his old friend's eyes narrow in suspicion. "I'll just go down and put some tea on for him, then."

Sirius wasted no time making his escape from books and hexes and Molly and dust. The kitchen was really rather clean now, and almost comfortable, with a crackling fire and an amply stocked pantry. He pulled a handful of teacups out of the cupboard, arranged a few tins of tea perfunctorily on the table, and sat down with the _Prophet_ to wait for Dumbledore's briefing.

Twenty minutes and two impassioned editorials on Quidditch rules later, the fire in the grate turned green. Sirius pushed the _Prophet_ to one side and jumped up to fill the kettle with water.

Dumbledore emerged from the Floo with a smudge of soot on the end of his long, crooked nose. "Ah, hello, Sirius," he said brightly. "You're looking well."

Sirius snorted. "I'll be looking even better as soon as I get out of this house!" He heard Remus enter the kitchen behind him. "What's the mission you've got for us?"

Dumbledore glanced over Sirius's shoulder at Remus before answering. "I'm sorry," he said gently, "but the mission is for Remus specifically."

Sirius scowled. "Fine." He tapped the kettle with his wand and it boiled at once. "Then find another one for _me._"

"Haven't the two of you discussed the situation?" Dumbledore was looking behind him at Remus again.

Sirius stepped away from the table and turned so that he could see both of them at once.

"It hadn't come up," said Remus wearily. "We were busy with the decontamination."

"What hadn't come up?" Sirius looked from one man to the other. Dumbledore was watching Remus, who met the keen blue gaze only briefly before ducking his head and looking away.

_Prefect Moony,_ thought Sirius suddenly. He'd seen Remus look like that a hundred times before—caught between the headmaster and the Marauders.

"Sirius," said Dumbledore gravely, "I'm afraid we can't risk letting you go on basic missions just now."

"_What?_"

Remus glanced at him and away again, picking up an empty teacup and turning it over in his hands. "If Peter's with Voldemort," he said quietly, "then your cover has been compromised—all of the Death Eaters will know to be watching for a big black dog."

"Indeed." Dumbledore poured a cup of tea with the barest flick of his wand and handed it to Sirius. "Between the danger from the Death Eaters, and the ten-thousand Galleon price on your head from the Ministry, the best way for you to serve the Order is from inside headquarters."

Inside _this house._

It was actually hard to breathe. The dark, gloomy walls that he thought he had left behind forever were pressing in on him. Sirius wanted to lash out, to smash something, to yell until his throat was raw.

Then came the brief touch of a hand on his arm. Steady brown eyes met his—this time they were full of shared frustration, and they didn't look away. "It's only for now," Remus assured him. "Until we capture Peter and clear your name."

"Besides, Molly needs you here," added Dumbledore cheerily. "Even with all the children helping, she can't clean out this whole house without you."

Now Sirius did hurl his teacup at the wall. It shattered against the stones. Tea dripped into a dark puddle on the floor, still steaming.

"I did _not_ join the _Order,_" he hissed between clenched teeth, "to clean a bloody _house._"

"But that's just it," said Remus, his voice still low and steady. "You're too important to the Order for us to let you risk your safety on a routine mission that anyone could do."

"Think of your godson," said Dumbledore. "If you were captured, by _either_ side, Harry would be devastated."

Sirius snatched another teacup from the table and sent it after the first one, feeling a flush of hostile triumph when the crash of china on stone made the old man wince.

Remus didn't flinch. He stood his ground and met Sirius's savage scowl with a silent plea for understanding.

_Understanding, my arse,_ thought Sirius. _I'll give you understanding when you're the one they won't let leave this pit of horrors._

He stalked out of the kitchen without another word and pounded up four flights of stairs to Buckbeak's room.

What made him angriest of all was that he knew they were right.

~o~o~o~

The malevolent old grandfather clock ground out a wheezy chime. Remus blinked at the book he held open on his lap, realising that he hadn't turned a page in at least a quarter of an hour. He set the book aside and ran a hand slowly over his face.

It was late. The children had gone to bed long ago, and by now surely Molly and Arthur had done the same. Remus shouldn't have been up this late, either, not so close to the full moon. But he was waiting in the library, trying to read amidst the cobwebs and the half-sorted piles of decontaminated books, just in case Sirius finally decided to come downstairs.

Remus had returned from his surveillance mission in time for supper. Sirius, however, had been conspicuously absent from the meal. Remus went upstairs once and said all the reasonable things he could think of through the locked door, but he got no response at all.

Now he stared at his hands, trying to convince himself that Sirius simply needed time to get used to the prospect of staying hidden away inside this house that he hated so much.

The alternative, of course, was that Sirius was holed up with Buckbeak because he thought that Remus's agreeing with Dumbledore had been a betrayal.

Remus sighed.

When they were all at Hogwarts, he never could have done the kind of thing he had done today, taking Dumbledore's side against one of his friends. He would have been too afraid of losing their friendship to take that kind of risk.

But Hogwarts was a long time ago. Remus understood, now, that some things _were_ important enough to risk a friendship—or, this time, the possibility of rebuilding a friendship—for.

Still, that didn't make it any easier to face the fact that Sirius had refused to speak to him tonight.

Remus decided he could really use a cup of tea to quiet the dull ache in his stomach.

He made his way down to the kitchen. He had expected to find it empty at this hour. Instead, it was full of Molly, bustling about cooking a second supper and humming happily under her breath.

He started to back away—so late at night and so close to the moon, he really didn't feel capable of putting forth the effort it would require to be courteous to Molly Weasley—but she looked up and saw him.

She stopped humming, of course, and gave him the too-bright smile that was very familiar now. Remus smothered a weary sigh and smiled carefully back. If his retreat was blocked, at least he could still have his cup of tea.

"I had an owl a little while ago," Molly explained, gesturing vaguely at a simmering cauldron of stew. "Bill's due in from Egypt tonight, and Arthur's going to send him over from the Burrow." She pointed her wand at a small oven built into the wall of the fireplace. A fragrant golden loaf floated out and landed gently on a bread board that sat waiting on the table.

"Good," said Remus sincerely, tapping the kettle with his wand to start the water heating. "I'll be glad to have an expert opinion on some of the nastier curses we've turned up."

Molly looked extremely pleased at his words. Remus rather thought she might launch into stories of her eldest son's curse-breaking triumphs, and he fixed another polite smile on his face in preparation. But before she could say another word, Bill himself stepped out from the Floo, tall and lean with a red ponytail and a small rucksack slung over one shoulder.

"Oh, Bill!" Molly threw her arms around him. "I'm so glad you've come! There are so many dreadful things in this house—you have no idea. There's one cupboard, up on the third floor—it turns itself red-hot every time you touch it, and George tried wrapping a handkerchief around the door pull, but then he sprouted great green boils all over his hand—"

"Steady, Mum." Bill patted his mother gently on the back, laughing a little. "It's late here now, and even later in Egypt—we'll have plenty of time for all this in the morning. I'm staying for a few days, you know." He disentangled himself from her smothering hug and grinned. "And it looks like I'll be transferring to the London branch next month."

Molly's face lit up. "That's wonderful! But I thought you loved Egypt—what's happened?"

"Erm, you know, with all that's going on, I thought maybe Dumbledore could use another pair of hands around here."

Remus thought Bill might have flushed slightly as he spoke, but it might have been nothing more than an effect of the heat from the fire. In any case, Molly didn't seem to notice anything amiss.

"Hullo." Bill was smiling straight at Remus now, where he stood in the corner with his tea. "_You're_ not Sirius Black. Unless the photos on those Ministry wanted posters are even worse than I thought."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Molly fluttered. "Remus, this is my son Bill. Bill, this is another Order member, a friend of Sirius's—Remus Lupin."

Bill's head came up sharply, and his eyes widened.

"Hello, Bill." Remus smiled and nodded, but he kept both hands on his teacup. He had learnt his lesson about wide-eyed Weasleys and handshakes.

Bill took a step closer, still staring. His gaze was as blue as Ron's. "_The_ Remus Lupin?"

Now Remus slowly set the teacup down, forcing himself to unclench his fingers from around the handle before he snapped it off. "Probably," he said, in his very mildest voice.

Bill broke into a broad grin. "The Remus Lupin who did a freelance code-breaking project for Gringotts during You-Know-Who's first rise?"

"Oh." Now it was Remus's turn to stare. "I had no idea anyone knew about that."

"Are you joking?" Bill seized Remus's hand, shaking it vigorously. "It's an honour to meet you. That was an amazing piece of decryption. It's a case study in the Curse-Breaker training course—I had an exam on it."

"A case study." Remus shook his head, and his mouth curved into a small rueful grin.

"I can't believe you didn't know that." Bill laughed. "You're the Lupin who taught at Hogwarts, too, aren't you? My brothers and Ginny told me you were brilliant teaching Defence. I wasn't surprised to hear it." His open, friendly smile faded into a thoughtful frown. "The way things are going these days, you really ought to be teaching there still."

Remus raised both eyebrows. "That's hardly the majority opinion, you know."

Bill sighed. "People can be really stupid about things sometimes. Just ask the goblins."

"Bill, dear," Molly broke in. "Come and have some stew."

Remus almost thought her voice sounded a little subdued. But that was probably only wishful thinking on his part.

People who held strong opinions about werewolves were not, in his experience, likely to change their minds.

~o~o~o~


	5. The Full Moon

~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~

"It is very painful to turn into a werewolf."  
—_Prisoner of Azkaban,_ chapter 18

"But apart from my transformations,  
I was happier than I had ever been in my life.  
For the first time ever, I had friends,  
three great friends. Sirius Black...Peter Pettigrew...  
and, of course, your father, Harry—James Potter."  
—_Prisoner of Azkaban,_ chapter 18

~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~

Remus peered cautiously around the door into the kitchen. As he had hoped, it was silent and deserted, except for the dust motes floating in the mid-afternoon light that slanted in through the small windows near the ceiling.

He was supposed to be upstairs in one of the empty bedrooms, trapping doxies and Vanishing the mildew that had spread across one entire wall. But he simply couldn't wait any longer.

Creeping across to the pantry, he rummaged stealthily until he found the block of Cheddar he had picked up the last time he went shopping for the household. He raised his wand to slice the cheese, but his spell went wide and pulverised an apple instead.

_Oh, hell._ He couldn't even stop his hands from shaking. _I'm bloody useless today._

Remus gritted his teeth, put his wand away, and reached for a knife. He managed to cut a thick slab of cheese and settle it between two slices of Molly's bread. Without even sparing the time to find a plate, he took a giant bite, gave it a perfunctory chew, and swallowed, shoulders sagging in relief as the cheese worked its miracle.

He made short work of the sandwich and Banished the crumbs, along with the remains of the unfortunate apple. But then he stood in the narrow pantry, hesitating. His hands were steady now, and the gnawing ache in his stomach was appeased—for the moment. Would this be enough to get him through the rest of the afternoon and let him avoid an embarrassing spectacle of greed at supper? He thought longingly of a fried egg (or two), but the sounds and smells of cooking would be harder to hide than a hasty sandwich. He didn't really even like the thought of taking more of the bread and cheese. Sirius had made it clear that he would underwrite meals for any Order member who wanted to eat at headquarters, but to Remus, afternoon sandwiches felt uncomfortably like having more than one's fair share. Especially since Molly had made the bread herself.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. _Damn it all. _If he were alone, home in his flat, he'd just spend as much of the day sleeping as possible. That was the simplest strategy for keeping the protein cravings at bay. But he couldn't sleep all day here, not when there was so much work to be done. He'd be worse than useless tomorrow as it was.

Reluctantly, Remus decided he would take his chances at supper—and risk calling attention to his situation if anyone noticed he was eating more than usual—rather than carry on sneaking food out of the pantry like a thief. Besides, maybe no one would realise it was full moon tonight. After all, no one had said anything to him all day, not even—

"Moony? I hope you're in here snacking!"

—Sirius.

Remus laughed softly. Trust old Padfoot to keep track of the moon, after all.

Sirius loped into the kitchen with such a cheerful grin that Remus couldn't help grinning back. Especially since it proved that Sirius wasn't angry with him any longer.

"I've just had a sandwich, actually," he confessed.

"Good." Sirius leaned one hip against the worktop, his grin turning slightly feral. "You'd better keep your strength up if we're going Marauding in the Forbidden Forest tonight."

Remus felt his own grin fade. "Sirius—"

"Come on, Moony," Sirius coaxed. The glint in his eye was positively wicked. "I can Apparate us directly to the Forest and turn into Padfoot right away. Where's the harm? It'll be just like old times. Not to mention more fun than I've had in months!"

Remus lowered himself gingerly into one of the chairs at the long wooden table. He was tired—so tired—and nearly everything ached. It would be so easy just to give in, to let Sirius sweep him along on yet another mad plan.

The wolf would appreciate it, too. There was no denying that Remus would feel a great deal better tomorrow if he spent the full moon running free in the Forbidden Forest instead of pacing and raging inside his tiny flat.

"It's a lovely summer night for it," said Sirius, obviously reminiscing. "We'll run all night tonight, and sleep all day tomorrow—" The wicked grin gleamed again. "And if we happen to sleep through some of Molly's _housecleaning,_ well, that's just too bad."

Remus's stomach clenched, just as it had every time his responsibilities as a prefect found themselves on a direct collision course with his friends' plans for some prank. And he'd let Sirius down badly yesterday. Going along with him now would be a way to make up for that.

"You know it'll be fun," Sirius wheedled.

Remus closed his eyes.

The last time he had let his emotions overwhelm his judgment, he had rushed off to the Whomping Willow without taking his last dose of Wolfsbane.

He couldn't afford to make a mistake like that. Never again.

"We can't, Padfoot," he said wearily.

"Of course we can." Sirius still had a grin in his voice.

Remus sighed and rested his forehead on his hand so that he wouldn't have to see the impish light in his old friend's eyes turn sullen, then angry, then accusatory. "We _can't._ You aren't big enough to keep the wolf under control by yourself, not without—"

_Not without Prongs._ He couldn't say it.

Even so, when he glanced up, Sirius looked stricken.

Remus winced at his own thoughtlessness.

"Besides," he said hastily, "Wormtail knows what we always used to do. Who's to say there won't be an army of Death Eaters lying in wait for you in the Forest?"

"All right—then let's go to your flat together," said Sirius, dropping into a chair across the table. He didn't sound nearly as sullen as Remus had expected. "Padfoot can keep Moony a bit quieter, even if we can't run free."

Ah, but it was tempting. Let Sirius have a secret unauthorised adventure for a night—keep the wolf from hurting itself—

"It's no good, Sirius." Remus stared at his hands. "If you leave the protection of the Fidelius Charm, anything could happen. We need to keep you safe for Harry's sake."

A fist slammed on the table. Remus started and looked up. But the grey eyes that met his weren't petulant or sullen at all.

They were fierce.

"Who's going to keep _you_ safe?" Sirius growled.

Remus blinked.

"I'll be fine," he said, confused. "I've been transforming in that flat for a year now. It's a good, secure place."

Sirius scowled. "I don't know about _fine._" He sighed. "At least come back here straight away in the morning, and let me look after you."

"I don't need looking after—" Remus began.

Sirius cut him off. "Let me make you breakfast, Moony. Please."

Remus rubbed at his throbbing temples. At least Sirius wasn't sulking. The least he could do after being such a wet blanket, he supposed, was to agree to _this_ plan, even if it meant dragging himself back to Grimmauld Place before he'd had a chance to sleep off the worst of the effects of the moon.

Even if it meant letting someone help him when he was at his most vulnerable. When he was in the greatest danger of starting to depend on that help.

"All right." Remus found a smile. "Thank you."

He was a little bit reassured when Sirius dredged up a smile as well.

~o~o~o~

Early the next morning, Molly came down the stairs into the kitchen, following what had become her daily routine. Except that the figure she found sitting at the table wasn't Remus, quietly sipping a cup of tea. It was Sirius, scowling at the _Daily Prophet._

Her eyes widened. _Sirius? At this hour?_

She'd rarely seen the man before about ten. In fact, she strongly suspected his leisurely mornings were a deliberate strategy for avoiding the first hour or two of housecleaning duty. But now here he was, only a little after sunrise, looking cross and disgruntled but wide awake all the same. And the cast-iron skillet and pile of plates and teacups in the sink suggested there had already been some breakfast.

"Good morning," she said, curiosity colouring her voice. "Where's Remus?"

"In his room, resting." A corner of Sirius's lip curled into a belligerent smirk—a challenge. "Full moon last night, you know."

"Oh." Molly went pale. "I hadn't realised." She was unable to repress a shudder.

Sirius gave her a frosty look. "There's really no need to be so melodramatic about it."

"I'm sorry," she said stiffly. "But you must admit the idea is quite frightening."

"If you think the _idea_ is frightening, try asking Remus how much he enjoys the transformation _itself._" Sirius bent over the newspaper again.

Molly stared at the top of his head. Talking to Sirius always made her feel a little uncomfortable—as though he were still the handsome, popular boy he'd apparently been at Hogwarts, and she still a slightly frumpy prefect who worried about getting homework finished on time. But he seemed particularly volatile where Remus was concerned.

She frowned a little.

Having a werewolf in the Order already made things complicated enough, without Sirius acting so difficult every time the subject came up.

Things didn't get much better as the morning wore on. On the one hand, Sirius seemed to have much more energy for cleaning than usual—almost as though he were trying to make up for Remus's absence. But he wasn't very _good_ at housecleaning spells. Worse still, he snarled and sulked, and it put the children in a restless mood.

And that, Molly realised suddenly, had something to do with Remus's absence as well. Normally, Remus would have sensed the growing irritability among the cleaning corps, and come out with one of his well-timed hints or wry remarks to keep the children (and Sirius) focussed. Instead, Sirius scowled and thumped his way through the morning, leaving chaos and cobwebs in his wake, and Molly had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at him.

Right before noon, when she had the twins levitating an ancient mouldering divan so that she could cast disinfecting spells on the carpet beneath it, Sirius actually disappeared. Molly supposed he'd finally given up even trying to be helpful. She couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or relieved.

But when she went down to the kitchen to see about lunch a few minutes later, there he was, busy loading a large bowl of soup and two thick sandwiches onto a tray.

"Is Remus still upstairs resting?" Molly heard her own voice come out sounding almost shy. "I could take that up to him, if you'd like. I was thinking just now that I'd make him some sandwiches when I made lunch for everyone else."

"That's all right." Sirius's tone was gruff, but his expression was friendlier than it had been. "I'll take it up. He needs his privacy right now."

"Is he—" Molly hesitated, but Sirius didn't start sneering, so she went on. "Is he ill, the day after?"

Sirius shook his head soberly. "Not ill, exactly, but the transformation is exhausting and very painful." He frowned, and this time Molly understood what she was seeing in his eyes: worry. "It seems the wolf spent hours throwing itself against the walls last night. Remus has a cracked rib and bruises all down his left side. I've given him a couple of healing potions, but I don't think he'll come downstairs until tomorrow. At least."

Molly bit her lip. "If there's anything at all I can do to help, please let me know."

Wonder of wonders, Sirius smiled at her as though he actually meant it. "Thanks. But Remus is tough, and he's used to this. We've got it handled."

He nodded briskly, levitated the tray, and disappeared up the stairs behind it.

Molly watched him go.

All of this sounded like rather a lot for someone to have to be used to, no matter how tough he might be.

~o~o~o~

Sirius trudged up the stairs toward the second floor, frowning at the lunch tray that bobbed along just ahead of him. _We've got it handled,_ he'd said to Molly.

Did he, really?

He'd been frightened—truly frightened—when Remus had stumbled out of the Floo this morning, his face white with pain and both hands pressed against his side where the rib was cracked. He didn't remember Moony ever looking quite that bad before. Was this an effect of aging?

Or had time and other griefs merely eroded his memories of the moons before they'd all mastered the Animagus transformation and started keeping Remus company?

He'd tried to bully Remus into calling Poppy Pomfrey to come have a look at him. Remus had laughed off Sirius's concern—or tried to, until the broken rib stopped him short—and said all he needed was time for the Bonesetting Charm he'd already cast to do its work.

Now, halfway up the dank stairway, Sirius thought about Remus facing this alone, month after month, for fourteen years.

Rage blazed, white-hot. _Damn that rat._ It was all he could do not to grab the floating tray and hurl it at the wall just to hear the china smash.

Especially since Peter wasn't the only one he was angry with.

Sirius had reached the second-floor landing. He stopped and leaned his head against the musty, peeling wallpaper.

_We've got it handled,_ he'd said.

But was there really a _we_ anymore?

He thought about how long it had taken, when they were at Hogwarts, for Remus to get used to the idea that Sirius and James (and Peter) _wanted_ to visit him in the hospital wing after full moons. For most of their second year, Remus had stiffened right up when they appeared, his eyes wide and wary. Sirius still remembered the relief he'd felt the first time Remus finally made a joke about the transformation—the first sign he had given that he trusted them not to turn on him or shut him out.

But wasn't shutting Remus out exactly what Sirius _had_ done, years later, once Peter started dropping those evil little hints?

And Remus knew it, too.

Sirius sighed. He thought they had taken a few steps toward mending old hurts that first evening in the house, over firewhisky, but he wasn't entirely sure. And now—Remus had insisted on spending the full moon alone. Was that really because he was worried about Sirius being caught?

Or was it—Sirius couldn't help wondering—was it a sign that he had lost that fragile trust that had taken so long to earn the first time?

A few more paces along the hallway, and he and the lunch tray were hovering outside Remus's door.

"Well," he whispered to the soup and the sandwiches, "here we go."

Sirius knocked softly. "Moony? You awake? I've brought you some lunch."

There was no answer at first. But then came a faint "_Alohomora,_" and the door swung open.

Sirius waved the tray ahead and stepped inside.

The curtains were pulled back away from the windows, letting warm sunlight fill the room. Remus had managed to hoist himself into a sitting position despite the cracked rib. He still looked absolutely dreadful, with hollow cheeks and great purple smudges under his eyes, but he was smiling.

"Feeding me again already, Padfoot?"

"You're lucky I'm such a good cook," said Sirius airily. But he was measuring the relaxed set of Remus's shoulders, and noting that the smile had reached his eyes.

Maybe he hadn't mucked things up with Moony—not completely.

~o~o~o~

Late in the afternoon, Molly left Sirius and the children hard at work removing a colony of Chizpurfles from a tiger-skin rug in one of the bedrooms on the third floor and started down toward the kitchen to see about dinner.

The door to the bathroom on the second floor opened just as she reached the landing. In a cloud of steam, Remus emerged, wearing faded pyjamas under a rather shabby dressing gown. He was moving slowly, with one hand on the wall for support, and he stopped short when he saw her.

"Hello, Remus," she said, feeling the usual nervous smile spread over her face. But the source of her discomfort was different this time; uppermost in her mind was worry about what she was supposed to say. Maybe it was best to keep things simple. "How are you feeling?"

He smiled back, his own habitually careful smile, although that polite, controlled expression looked out of place now that there were deep lines of exhaustion around his eyes. "I'm sorry that I haven't been any use today. I'll see what I can do tomorrow."

Molly noticed that he hadn't answered her question.

"No, no," she said quickly, "take your time and have a good rest. We're doing fine."

Remus gave a subdued nod and another careful smile. He stood there, looking slightly uncomfortable, but he made no move to leave.

Molly suddenly remembered what Sirius had said about privacy—maybe Remus didn't want to have to drag himself along the hallway in front of an audience.

She cast about for a reason to go away. "Shall I bring you a cup of tea?"

Remus blinked, looking surprised and even grateful, which sent a small stab of guilt Molly's way. Now she rather wished she hadn't thought of it only as an excuse.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "That would be very nice."

"You go on and get settled, then, and I'll bring it straight up." Molly turned and hurried down the stairs toward the kitchen. As soon as she'd rounded the first corner, she heard the slow, uneven footsteps resume overhead.

It only took her five minutes to brew a cup of tea and dash back up to the second floor. There was no sign of Remus in the hallway, but he'd left the door of his room ajar—it could only be for her, since she'd never seen it open before.

She knocked gently and poked her head around the edge of the door. Remus had climbed back into bed. He must have been too tired to wait for the tea after all; his eyes were closed, and he was snoring softly.

Molly's conscience pricked her, but she couldn't help taking advantage of the opportunity to look around his room. It was furnished in the same dark heavy style as every other room in the house, but it felt brighter, because the gloomy velvet drapes had been pulled back to let in as much daylight as possible. The furniture and floor were scrubbed spotless, which was hardly surprising, and the few things in the room that looked like personal belongings—mostly books and papers—were stacked in orderly piles. The only thing out of place was the dressing gown, which lay crumpled on the floor by the side of the bed.

She stepped quietly inside and set the teacup down on the bedside table, casting a Warming charm on it that ought to last for two or three hours. The tea would taste warmed over, but at least Remus would have something hot to drink when he woke again.

For a moment, she stood there next to the bed, looking down at him as he slept. His face was much more open and unguarded than she was used to seeing, and despite his obvious exhaustion it made him look years younger. Not so very much older than Bill, really.

Remus stirred slightly, and Molly blushed, realising that she'd been staring. She started to turn away.

Then, on an impulse, she bent down and picked up the dressing gown. It seemed to have been blue once, but now it was even more faded and threadbare than the one she'd been begging Arthur for years to get rid of. She shook it out and hung it neatly on a hook on the back of the door.

With another quick glance at the still, silent form in the bed, she slipped out again, closing the door carefully behind her.

~o~o~o~


	6. A New Order

~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~

"Mum's been in a right state,"  
said Ron dully. "You know—crying and stuff.  
She came up to London to try and talk to Percy  
but he slammed the door in her face."  
—_Order of the Phoenix,_ chapter 4

"Oh yeah," said Sirius sarcastically.  
"Listening to Snape's reports, having to  
take all his snide hints that he's out there  
risking his life while I'm sat on my backside  
here having a nice comfortable time...  
asking me how the cleaning's going—"  
—_Order of the Phoenix,_ chapter 5

"We're doing our best," said Lupin.  
—_Order of the Phoenix,_ chapter 5

~o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o~

Molly paused outside Tudhope's Apothecary in Diagon Alley, peering at her crumpled shopping list. There were quite a few things she needed to restock; Sirius had used up rather a lot of supplies in the two days since the full moon, brewing pain potions and bone-knitting elixirs. Not that Molly begrudged Remus those remedies. He was back on decontamination duty now, but he still didn't look particularly steady on his feet.

Shaking her head, she turned back to her list, wanting to finish her shopping as quickly as she possibly could. The first full meeting of the Order of the Phoenix was scheduled for that afternoon.

And she had something else to do, first.

Arthur still refused to let Percy's name pass his lips. But last night he'd slipped her a scrap of parchment bearing the address of their son's new flat, muttering vaguely about having asked around at the Ministry.

Today was Saturday, so Percy would probably be at home. It was all she could do to make herself take care of the shopping before Apparating straight over, but she didn't want to get there _too_ early, in case he was sleeping late on his day off. _He always works so hard, the poor dear..._

"Hi, Mrs. Weasley!"

She looked up to see a classmate of Ron's approaching, with his mother right behind him.

"Hello, Seamus." Molly smiled. "Are you enjoying your summer holidays?"

"Yeah, I am." The boy grinned back. "But I'll be glad to go back to Hogwarts, too. I get tired of not being able to use magic when I'm at home!"

"He never slows down, my Seamus," Eithne Finnegan said fondly. She ruffled her son's hair, which made him look pleased and embarrassed at the same time. Then she sighed. "I only hope they get someone competent for Defence this year. Gilderoy Lockhart was a brilliant choice, to be sure, but it's been downhill ever since. A werewolf and a mad impostor! I don't know _what _the school is coming to these days."

"_Mum_." Seamus poked at the ground with the toe of one shoe. "That Moody was a bit scary, maybe, but Professor Lupin was all right." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "I've _told_ you. He was a really good teacher, and we all liked him."

Eithne looked appalled. "I don't care how friendly he _seemed_. I simply don't know what Dumbledore was thinking! No one with any sense would be letting a bloodthirsty monster watch over innocent children!"

Molly frowned.

She had just left the werewolf in question cheerfully polishing flatware in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place—with Ron, Ginny, and Hermione. And it was precisely _because_ Remus was in the house that she'd been willing to leave Fred and George anywhere _near_ Sirius Black without her supervision.

Absently, she exchanged a few more pleasantries with the Finnegans and then stood watching as they walked away.

_Bloodthirsty monster._

It was odd, how different that sounded when someone else said it.

~o~o~o~

The flatware was all polished and put away. The children—and Sirius—had vanished somewhere upstairs to take advantage of what freedom they could snatch before Molly came back.

Remus had retreated to the library, where he was trying to make some progress on the many piles of cursed and hexed books that still needed to be disarmed. One thick green volume had been laced with a rather intricate combination of unpleasant spells, a Stinging Hex crossed with a Page-Turner Curse, and he had to hold it suspended in the air while he disentangled half of one spell, neutralized the other, and finished removing the first. By the time he let the book land with a soft thump on the all-clear pile, his side ached where the rib had been broken and he was feeling embarrassingly winded.

Clearly, a cup of tea was called for.

It was nearly time for lunch, in any case. If Molly wasn't back from shopping yet, maybe he should start making sandwiches. With the Order meeting in the afternoon, they had better not leave lunch too late.

Remus made his way gingerly down the stairs to the ground floor, stepping carefully and concentrating on keeping his balance. But when he was halfway down the basement stairs, he heard an odd choking sound coming from the kitchen.

Leaning on the banister for support, he hurried the rest of the way down and burst through the kitchen door.

There sat Molly at the table, with her head pillowed on her arms—sobbing.

"Molly!" Remus crossed the kitchen in two strides. "What's happened?"

"It's P-P-Percy," she gasped. "He—he—" A fresh torrent of sobs burst forth, and she thumped one fist weakly against the table.

Remus had heard from Dumbledore about Percy's break with the family. He'd been entirely in favour of Sirius leaving home all those years ago, and of course the Blacks were not the Weasleys. But now, for the first time, he really stopped to imagine how it would feel to have your own child turn away from you.

He sat in the chair next to Molly's, perching on the edge. Her distress was painful to see. Reflexively, he reached out and patted her on the shoulder.

The sobs quieted a little.

"What happened?" he asked, gently.

"I went to see him," she said, her voice breaking again. "To see if he was all right—to see if he wouldn't at least talk to Arthur. But he told me—"

Another burst of sobs.

Remus kept patting, and added a sympathetic murmur.

"—he told me he'd meant everything he'd said, and he didn't want to have anything to do with our family, or Dumbledore, ever again! What if..." She shuddered. "What if he joins the Death Eaters?"

Remus gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze. "I don't think that's the kind of thing Percy would do."

Molly sat up at that. "Really?" She fixed him with a pleading expression. "You really think he wouldn't?" She rubbed at the tears on her cheeks with the heels of her hands, and Remus started to reach into his pocket for a handkerchief to offer, but Molly fished a frilly, embroidered one out of her apron and wiped her eyes.

"I saw quite a lot of Percy when he was Head Boy, and in my N.E.W.T.-level Defence class," said Remus slowly. "He likes to be right, and he likes to be the best at things. But he has a good heart." He gave her a smile that he hoped was a reassuring one. "You and Arthur have done a fine job raising your children. It may take some time, but I think Percy will come home, and I don't think he'll fall in with the Death Eaters."

"Oh, I do hope you're right." Molly bit her lip and turned that pleading gaze on him again. Then she shook her head, sniffed hard, and sighed, looking a little embarrassed for the first time. "I should probably go wash my face before the children come downstairs."

"That's a good idea," said Remus. "You do that, and I'll make some sandwiches for lunch."

"Thank you." She managed a watery smile before she disappeared up the stairs.

Remus began to assemble a platterful of roast beef and horseradish sandwiches. He thought about Percy, and Sirius, and families.

And then he froze, staring blankly at his hand.

The hand that had actually been patting Molly Weasley on the shoulder.

She must have been so distressed that she forgot to be afraid of him.

~o~o~o~

Sirius slouched in his chair in a corner of the kitchen, his scowl growing darker and darker as the first meeting of the reconstituted Order of the Phoenix dragged on.

How much longer would he have to sit here, listening to everyone else being given missions and tasks, when _he_ would be trapped in this mouldering old house until he started to rot away? Even Remus had a mission, even this soon after the full moon. He was to go up to Glasgow tonight, to sit around in a certain dodgy pub under an Appearance Charm and try to figure out if Death Eaters were meeting there.

The only other member of the Order who hadn't been given some kind of task outside the house was Molly. Sirius tried not to think too hard about the implications of ending up in the same category as _Molly Weasley._

"And that," came Dumbledore's voice, "is the last of our business for today, I think."

"Thank Godric," Sirius muttered. Remus flashed him a hint of a smirk before snapping back into perfect-prefect mode.

"Until next time, then," Dumbledore was saying. "And, although I very much regret the circumstances, it is nevertheless a pleasure to have us all together once more."

Chairs scraped, and chatter swelled and grew, until the kitchen was quite noisy. Even Remus stood and began to greet some of the people he hadn't spoken to before the meeting began.

Sirius stayed in his corner and glowered.

Sturgis Podmore passed by and caught his eye. "Erm," he said awkwardly. "Black. Good to see you."

"Podmore." Sirius smiled grimly. No one seemed to know what to say to him. He supposed they weren't quite ready for _I'm so sorry none of us trusted you enough to work out that you were wrongly accused and imprisoned without a trial._

Emmeline Vance was the next to pass by. It hit Sirius just how long fourteen years really was—he'd still thought of Emmeline as young, but you couldn't really say that anymore. She didn't seem to have any words for him, either, so she made do with a quick, flustered smile. Sirius merely inclined his head, as regally as he could manage. If no one was going to try to make him feel at ease, why should he make an effort for any of them?

At least Dung was Dung. "See you, mate," he said, as though the last fourteen years had never happened. "I'll be round for a drink later, yeah?"

Kingsley Shacklebolt was all right, too. Sirius remembered him, vaguely, as a shrimpy little first-year, but apparently now he was the Auror in charge of the Sirius Black manhunt. Shacklebolt seemed to find the irony rather amusing.

"Meant to tell you, Black," he said now. "I've got my eye on a likely new Order recruit in the Aurors, who I think you'll find particularly interesting. If it works out, I'll bring her along soon."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "It'd be good to have another Auror on our side."

Shacklebolt just grinned mysteriously and made his way up the stairs.

McGonagall stopped to say a few words, then, and Arthur Weasley went by with his friendly smile, and Sirius started to feel a little better about things.

Until Snivellus Snape caught his eye and fixed him with a sneer.

Sirius lost no time in sneering right back.

Snape took a few steps closer, and it would have been hard to say which of the two of them looked at the other with more loathing.

"Be sure you pay attention when you're working for Voldemort," said Sirius, seizing the opportunity to vent his frustration at his favourite target of old. "Don't forget whose side you're _really_ on."

"I am hardly likely to forget," said Snape, dripping venom. "I cannot afford _mistakes_ when I am standing at the Dark Lord's side." His lip curled. "I understand it is you we have to thank for the _housecleaning_—such as it is—at this miserable headquarters." The smirk grew. "Sirius Black, tied to Molly Weasley's apron strings. Imagine."

Sirius narrowed his eyes and wrapped his fingers around his wand.

And then all at once, Remus was there. "Hello, Severus," he said. "I've been following up that information you sent about Mulciber's contacts in Bulgaria. It has been most useful."

"Good," Snape drawled. "That was a particularly tricky bit of espionage, and I would hate to see it go to waste." He looked Sirius up and down, and smirked again. "As Black, here, has done." Then he spread his hands in mock apology. "Oh—do excuse me, Black, I forgot. You're taking care of the _housecleaning,_ so central to the mission of the Order of the Phoenix. And so conveniently distant from any, say, Death Eaters."

Sirius felt the blood rush to his head. His fist clenched around his wand, and his mouth opened to launch some suitably scathing reply.

"Sirius." Remus put a hand on his arm.

Sirius jerked away and thumped up the stairs, up and up and up until he reached the third floor. He shoved open the heavy mahogany door to the master suite. Then he took a deep breath, and bowed.

Buckbeak shuffled sideways, rolling his eyes—he always could tell when Sirius was agitated—but then he bowed back. He always did.

Sirius straightened up and pushed the door shut behind him. Buckbeak trotted right over, butting against Sirius's shoulder, and Sirius couldn't help feeling a little better.

"Hullo, Beaky," he said, stroking the feathery head. "Holding up all right in here?"

Sirius looked around the room with sour satisfaction. His mother would have popped a vein or two if she could have seen her bedroom now, with the ornate furniture all stacked in the corner under a Shrinking Charm, and the once-elegant carpet strewn with a layer of hay—which, incidentally, smelled like it would need an _Evanesco_ soon.

Buckbeak snorted and pranced a little, but then he made a little inquiring noise and looked longingly at the the wide double windows in the western wall.

"Feeling a bit cooped up, are you?" asked Sirius, wryly. "I can sympathise." He tapped the hippogriff on the head with his wand, Disillusioning him, and then pulled both windows all the way open.

"Go on, then," he said, giving Buckbeak a slap on the rump. "At least _one_ of us should be able to get out of here sometimes."

The hippogriff butted his head against Sirius's shoulder one more time before trotting to the window, spreading his wings, and launching himself into the summer evening.

Sirius crossed to the window, kicking at the hay and the occasional rat skull. He leaned his elbows on the sill and looked out over the old-fashioned roofs of Grimmauld Place. The bright blue of the summer sky was starting to soften around the edges as evening came on. Birds darted among the chimneypots, chittering.

He sighed, watching one particular bird until it flew up over the house and out of sight. _Never thought I'd see the day when I was jealous of a bloody swallow._

But his rage had cooled, now that he was away from Snivellus—leaving behind little more than the fog of sullen irritation that had become all too familiar.

~o~o~o~

Remus, pushing open the door to Mrs. Black's old bedroom, was halfway into his bow before he realised that the hippogriff was gone. Sirius was alone in the room, standing at the open window, looking up into the sky.

Remus stifled a sympathetic grin. At least Sirius hadn't been _riding_ Buckbeak when he let him out.

He crossed the room, slowly, letting the hay crackle under his feet to mark his progress. When he reached the window, he mirrored Sirius's pose, propping his elbows on the sill and gazing out into the early-evening light.

"I know, I know," Sirius muttered, unprompted, still staring straight ahead. "I can't go off on missions, because I need to be here for Harry."

The dull, flat tone of his voice made Remus wince.

"Actually, I've been talking to Dumbledore." He risked a sideways glance. "There will be a fair number of intelligence-type missions, too. Papers to go through, information to analyse—that sort of thing. No reason you can't work on those right from here."

"Sounds like homework," Sirius grumbled, keeping up appearances. But Remus saw his head lift, just a little, and his eyes turn thoughtful.

Crisis averted, then.

So now, Remus could relax and make small talk. Sirius would most likely cooperate, parrying with something caustic but amusing. And things would go on as they had been ever since Sirius turned up at Remus's flat—or, really, ever since their first exchange of owls after Sirius fled Hogwarts with Buckbeak a year ago. A more-or-less comfortable jokey rapport between two Order members who had known each other for a long time, even if they had both made mistakes. Even if, in the end, they hadn't always trusted each other.

Things could go on just as they had been.

Or—

"It's not only for Harry's sake, you know," said Remus, quietly, before he lost his nerve.

"Hmm?" Sirius turned, actually looking at him now.

Remus steeled himself and met the curious grey eyes straight on. "I don't want to lose you again, Padfoot."

Sirius blinked, startled into silence. For once.

"You and James were the best friends I ever had, in all my life." Remus fought a visceral urge to look away, and prevailed, if just barely. "All the troubles we had—a lot of that was Peter's scheming, of course. But some of it was my own bloody pride and shame. And then, afterward, I went on telling myself I was all right on my own. But I wasn't."

Something deep flickered in that grey gaze. A bony hand gripped Remus's shoulder and squeezed. Hard.

Still, Sirius's voice was light when he finally spoke. "Moony, you're a hopeless sentimentalist. You're about as far from alone as you can get, now that you've got the whole damn Order of the Phoenix watching your back."

"A few of them, maybe." Remus tried not to let thoughts of Molly's fear and prejudice spoil the moment. "But none of _them_ used to nick biscuits from the Hogwarts kitchens for me after moons."

Sirius smirked at him, although his eyes were still warm. "I think you've got more of the Order with you than you know. People _listened_ to you at the meeting today. Didn't you see?"

Remus hadn't noticed any such thing, but it wasn't important. He shrugged, and smiled.

And then he eyed the sky, which was fading and turning pinker toward the west. "Speaking of the Order meeting," he said carefully, "I had probably better start thinking about setting off for that pub in Glasgow."

Sirius began to scowl, but then he glanced sideways at Remus and settled on a small weary sigh instead. "You'll bring back information for me to analyse?"

"I solemnly swear that I will find you a mission you can carry out from here." Remus raised his hand in mock earnestness, and—thankfully—Sirius grinned.

They left the window open for Buckbeak, closed the mahogany door firmly, and set off down the stairs. Remus still wasn't moving all that quickly, but they hurried past the house-elf heads and tiptoed past the portraits in the ground-floor hallway.

And then they were at the front door, past which Remus could go and Sirius could not.

"Right, then," said Sirius. "Go on up to Glasgow and prank a few Death Eaters, yeah?"

Remus felt the squeeze of that hand on his shoulder again. He grinned, remembering what it was like to be seventeen and making mischief.

He had his hand on the doorknob when there came a sudden clatter of footsteps, hurrying up the stairs from the kitchen and along the hall.

They turned.

There stood Molly, with her hands on her hips, positively glaring.

"Remus Lupin, just where do you think you are going?" Her voice was a whisper, in deference to the portraits dozing in their frames. But it had the impact of a shout.

"Erm." Remus blinked. "I'm off on the reconnaisance mission to Glasgow." He had never seen Molly this angry, not at him, anyway (the twins were another matter entirely). "I'm sorry—I thought you were there when Dumbledore was briefing me about it at the meeting."

"Yes, I was there." The glare grew, if possible, fiercer. "But it didn't sound like such an urgent mission that it can't wait another half hour."

Remus blinked again. "No, it's not that much of a rush—I just thought I'd go along and get started."

"Oh, no you won't." She stepped toward him again, and even though she was considerably shorter than he was, it was all he could do to stand his ground without stepping back.

And then, Molly reached out and closed her fingers around his sleeve.

"I will not have you leaving this house without a hot meal." She gave the sleeve a sharp tug. "You are to come downstairs right now and join the rest of us for supper. Is that understood?"

Remus felt his jaw drop. He hurriedly closed it and nodded obediently.

Apparently satisfied, Molly released her grip on his robes and disappeared back down the stairs, muttering under her breath things that sounded like "skin and bones" and "working himself to death" and "no sense at all."

Sirius was sniggering. "Looks like you've finally landed in her 'needs mothering' category." He rolled his eyes. "Much better you than me."

But Remus couldn't stop a small grin from tugging at one corner of his mouth.

They descended the last flight of stairs down to the kitchen, Remus trying not to lean too hard on the banister.

The kitchen was dim but warm in the light of the chandeliers and the fireplace. The table was laden with food, including what looked like two entire roast chickens and an enormous Yorkshire pudding—Remus felt his mouth start to water. Arthur and Bill, both contentedly chewing, looked up and smiled at them. Molly gave a brisk nod of approval and turned away to fill more plates.

"Oi, Sirius." One of the twins brandished a piece of parchment bristling with notes and diagrams as soon as his mother had turned her back. "Come and have a look at this."

"Professor Lupin!" called Hermione, from the end of the table where she was sitting between Ginny and Ron. "I'm glad you haven't left yet. There's something we wanted to ask you, about doxies."

He started in their direction, only to have Molly intercept him with a positively heaping plate of food.

"Here you are, dear," she said. "Make sure you have plenty to eat, especially if you'll be out late. Do you know what time you'll be home? I can leave something out for you under a Warming Charm."

"Oh—I—erm—thank you," said Remus, a little dazed by the _dear_. "I should be home right after last orders, I imagine, but then I'll probably just have a cup of tea and go to bed."

Molly _patted his arm._

Still blinking, he took a seat at the table. He was leaning forward to listen carefully to Hermione's question when the echo of his own words brought him up short.

But it was true.

Sometime, somehow—while he had been busy with doxies and cobwebs and counterspells, with the full moon, with the children's restless energy, and Sirius's sulks, and Molly's worries—

Grimmauld Place had become home.

~ _fin_ ~

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally posted in 2010-2011 on LiveJournal and FanFiction.net. Many thanks to LJ friends jncar, duck_or_rabbit, and jobey_in_error for beta-reading and offering valuable concrit.


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